Is this Shaine Casas’ Breakout Summer? 2024 Olympian Seeded to Make Worlds Roster in 5 Events

2025 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, June 3 – Saturday, June 7, 2025
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Indiana University Natatorium
• LCM (50 meters)
• World Championship Selection Criteria
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results

Now that the psych sheets have dropped for the 2025 U.S. National Championships next week, we have a more clear picture of what the fields will look like in each event. One thing that has begun to stick out as we look through the events is that 25-year-old Texas pro swimmer Shaine Casas has the stage set for a breakout summer.

Casas has long been a swimmer with the talent to compete on the world stage in a multitude of events, however, an off swim here and there at U.S. Trials meets have kept him very limited or entirely off international rosters. In some cases, like the 100 back at the 2020 (2021) Olympic Trials, it wasn’t even an off swim that denied Casas a roster spot. There, he swam a 52.76 in finals, which was only 0.04 seconds off his career best off the time, but Hunter Armstrong beat him out for 2nd by a quarter-of-a-second.

This year, things look different. Not only did Casas get the proverbial monkey off his back by qualifying for the Olympics in the 200 IM last summer, but that was the latest in a long line of steady, slow improvement in big LC meets. Casas made his first World Champs team in 2022, where he qualified in the 200 back and wound up earning the bronze medal in Budapest. He then went to the 2024 Worlds, where he won a gold medal and a pair of bronze medals on relays. He then qualified for his first Olympics last summer, going on to make semifinals in the 200 IM in Paris.

So, Casas has been gradually getting better in big spots racing LC. Couple that with the significant number of absences at this U.S. Nationals, and this may well be the clearest path Casas will ever see to having a very busy schedule at a LC World Championships. In fact, it would seem no swimmer stands to potentially benefit more from the absences than Casas, purely because he’s swimming many of the events with the most significant absences.

Let’s start with the backstrokes, which will be missing both Ryan Murphy and Hunter Armstrong, who would have been the favorites. Casas is entered in the 50 and 100 back, and now he comes in as the top seed in the 50 back and #2 seed in the 100 back. It’s worth noting that, while Casas is the 2nd seed in the 100 back, he has the fastest career best in the field.

Moving on to fly, in which Casas is entered in the 50 and 100, and we now know that Caeleb Dressel isn’t competing. That means the favorite in both those fly races is out of the picture. Casas is the top seed in the 50 fly heading into the meet, and he’s the 2nd seed in the 100 fly. While those fly fields are still quite tough, the absence of Dressel really opens things up.

Now, we take a look at the 200 IM, which is the event Casas made the Olympics in last summer. Casas is the 2nd seed there, behind only training partner Carson Foster, though their seeds are separated by just 0.18 seconds. Moreover, Foster and Casas are ahead of the 3rd seed by over a second.

In addition to those races, Casas is also entered in the 100 free and 200 free, in which he is seeded 7th in both. While that obviously sticks out compared to his other seeds, we have to remember that those are relay events, so 5-6 swimmers will be named to the Worlds roster from each of those events. It’s also worth noting that the absences of names like Dressel, Armstrong, Ryan Held, Blake Pieroni, and Drew Kibler are helping to clear the field for Casas, and everyone else, in one or both of those events.

So, if you’ve been counting along, that means Casas is entered in 7 events. Now, given that this is a 5-day meet, we can expect Casas to scratch down from that, unless he decides to try and go full Michael Phelps, but that seems pretty unlikely. We have some precedent, as Casas was entered in the 100 free, 100 back, 100 fly, and 200 IM at Trials last summer, but only wound up racing the 100 back and 200 IM. Now, that was a much longer meet and the paths to qualifying for the Olympic team were considerably more difficult, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.

That being said, it raises the question of which events he and coach Bob Bowman will decide to forego. He’s seeded to make the team in the fly events, back events, and the 200 IM, and while he’s right on the edge of being seeded to make the roster in the freestyles, we need to remember those events inherently have more opportunity to make the roster. At the end of the day, making the final in the 100 and 200 free is half the battle in making the roster. Could he potentially try the Phelps tactic of swimming fast enough in prelims that they wind up swimming him on relays at Worlds, even if he isn’t named to the roster for those relays? It’s just a thought…afterall, he has the same coach as Phelps.

One thing is becoming clear as we continue to preview this meet: Shaine Casas could easily be one of the biggest stories of these Nationals. It will come down to he and Bowman’s plan, how they want to navigate his events, and, of course, the execution on Casas’ end, but he could come out of next week with one of the busiest World Champs schedules on Team USA.

It turns us towards a larger area of interest about this summer. With so many absences, particularly with longstanding leaders for USA Swimming on the men’s side, who is going to step up this summer and become leaders for the team? It may sound a little overblown, but no Murphy, Dressel, Armstrong, Kalisz, etc. leaves a gap in the dynamic of the roster that can really help to shepherd the new and younger swimmers who are on the team. If the U.S. is going to have a successful World Championships, they’ll need some new men’s swimmers to step up and take that torch.