Katie Grimes Drops 400 Freestyle, Isabel Ivey Out of 100 Backstroke ‘B’ Final

2023 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Day 4 Finals Heat Sheet

Scratches for night 4 of the US National Championships were relatively quiet as compared to previous nights, with no swimmers scratching from the A-final of any of the events. 

The most notable scratch of the day comes from Katie Grimes, who is out of the B-final of the women’s 400 freestyle after finishing 10th in prelims with a 4:10.25. Grimes, who qualified for the World Championships via a first place finish in the 400 IM last night, hasn’t been “on” in the freestyle events at this meet. A 2021 Olympian in the 800 freestyle, she finished a disappointing 5th in the event on Day 2 of the meet with a 8:23.78, well off of her personal best of 8:17.05 from the Olympic Games. She also missed the A-final in the 200 freestyle, finishing 10th in the prelims of that race, before dropping a 1:57.55 to win the B-final. 

After qualifying for Worlds in the 400 IM last night, many were confident that she might’ve finally found her groove before the 400 and 1500 freestyle. However, this morning, her time of 4:10.25 came in over 5 seconds off of her best time of 4:05.18 from earlier this season. Had she matched that time, Grimes would’ve been ranked 2nd going into the final. She still has the 1500 freestyle on Saturday, an event in which she’s the defending World Championships silver medalist. With Grimes’ scratch, Sloane Reinstein slots into the B-final in lane 8 after swimming a best time of 4:12.87 to place 17th this morning. 

The only other scratch from an A-final or B-final came in the 100 backstroke, where Florida’s  Isabel Ivey has opted out of the race. Ivey swam a 1:00.93 in prelims to place 16th overall, making the B-final by about a tenth of a second. Ivey still has the 200 IM, which is arguably her strongest event and best chance of qualifying for an international team, on her schedule for Saturday. She enters the 200 IM with the 10th seed and an entry time of 2:12.56, making sense that she decided to scratch here. 

With Ivey out of the race, Reilly Tiltmann moved up into the B-final after finishing 17th in prelims. Her time of 1:01.07 from this morning was only a few tenths off of her entry time of 1:00.59, which originally seeded her 16th entering the meet. 

 

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About Nicole Miller

Nicole Miller

Nicole has been with SwimSwam since April 2020, as both a reporter and social media contributor. Prior to joining the SwimSwam platform, Nicole also managed a successful Instagram platform, amassing over 20,000 followers. Currently, Nicole is pursuing her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After competing for the swim …

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