No Summer McIntosh in the 100 Back – Day 3 Canadian Olympic & Paralympic Trials Scratches

2024 CANADIAN OLYMPIC & PARALYMPIC TRIALS

Day 3 Prelims Heat Sheet

Day 3 Schedule

  • Men’s Para 400 Free
  • Women’s Para 400 Free
  • Men’s Open 2oo Free
  • Women’s Open 100 Back
  • Men’s Para 150 IM
  • Women’s Open 1500 (early heats)

As the week progresses, one should begin to expect more and more high-impact scratches. It is a natural process as athletes either have already qualified in events or have begun to tire (or get injured) and are trying to maximize their potential by focusing solely on their best event. Today’s scratches follow that pattern.

While yesterday we saw just one scratch amongst the top ten, Finlay Knox, in the Men’s 100 back, today there are four. Chief among them is the Canadian superstar and teen sensation Summer McIntosh.

McIntosh, who has already qualified for the team twice, both by virtue of world-leading times, has opted not to swim the Women’s 100 back. When her Olympic Trials schedule leaked, many heads were turned at the inclusion of this event. While well outside of her forte of events, a very wide range that goes from the 200-1500 free and includes both the 200 fly and IM events, the 100 back seemed a little peculiar.

One of Canada’s foundations in not just medley relays but in swimming overall has been the backstroke. Kylie Masse and Hillary Caldwell both won medals at the Rio Games, with Masse exploding from there to break the 100-back world record and win a further three more medals in Tokyo. Since then, Taylor Ruck and Ingrid Wilm have added their names to the depth of women’s backstroke.

It seemed unlikely that McIntosh would swim the event, for if she were to be a part of the medley relay it seemed likely that she would swim the free leg, so her scratch should come as little surprise. In addition to having already swum the 200 and 400 freestyle, McIntosh still has the 100 free, 200s Fly/IM and the 400 IM to race. With her withdrawal, Ruck moves up to the third seed, occupying lane 4 in the first of three circle-seeded heats.

Also opting not to swim their events this morning is Steve Frantskevich. Frantskevich was the #4 seed in the Men’s 200 breaststroke, entering with a seed time of 2:15.97. He was also entered in the Men’s 100 breaststroke, but also withdrew from that. These were his only two events.

While not swimming this morning, the Top ten of the Women’s 1500 free saw two withdrawals. Megan Willar, who entered as the #4 seed with an entry time of 16:48.40, and the #9 seed Lydia Hart, who had an entry time of 17:19.66. The fastest ten swimmers overall and the fastest ten junior swimmers in this timed final event will swim tonight.

Willar placed 8th in the 400 on day one and still entered in the 50, 100 and 800 frees. Hart placed 16th in the 400 and is also still entered in the 100 and 800 free.

Also in the Women’s Para 400 freestyle, Tan Yang has withdrawn as the #3 seed. Her withdrawal left just two swimmers in the prelims. Tan has already finished 4th in the Women’s Para 100 breast.

All Top 30 Scratches

  • Women’s Para 400 Free: Yang Tan (#3 – 6:13.95)
  • Men’s 200 Free: None
  • Women’s 100 Back: Summer McIntosh (#4 – 59.64) and Marissa Laurin (#27 – 1:03.74)
  • Men’s 200 Breast: Steve Frantskevich (#4 – 2:15.97)
  • Women’s 1500: Megan Willar (#4 – 16:48.4), Lydia Hart (#9 – 17:23.66), Jessica Dreghici (#20 – 17:30.82) and Eleaunah Phillips (#29 – 17:36.78)

In This Story

12
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

12 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Greg P
1 month ago

200 fly textile world record (Zhang’s 2:03.86) and 200 IM WR (Hosszu’s 2:06.12) is on short notice.

Laura7
1 month ago

Wondering why Summer would bother racing the relays at all, given her versatility in the individual events?

Greg P
Reply to  Laura7
1 month ago

Because Canada needs her.

Greg P
1 month ago

Summer was disappointed with her 400 free.

She swam gun blazing in 200 free and went only 0.04s slower than her PB from Fukuoka

It’s clear she really wanted to swim super fast in this meet.

My take is that she really wants to swim scorching times to send signal to her competitors.

And now she skip 100 back so she has a bit of rest to focus on her Olympic events. I now expect her to swim 2:03 in 200 fly, 2:06.50 in 200 IM, and 4:26 in 400 IM

Laura7
Reply to  Greg P
1 month ago

I think her WR in the 400 free last spring put too much pressure on her heading into Worlds. I get the feeling she would rather fly under the radar until the Olympics.

Last edited 1 month ago by Laura7
The unoriginal Tim
1 month ago

If Canada don’t have a viable W4x100 Free relay should Summer swim the 200 Free in Paris?

Last edited 1 month ago by The unoriginal Tim
Greg P
Reply to  The unoriginal Tim
1 month ago

I don’t understand this question.

W4x100 free is not in conflict with 200 free.

200 free final is on the same night as 400 IM final.

There’s 1 hour and 18 minutes between the start of 400 IM and 200 free.

Mcintosh may still swim 200 free.

Last edited 1 month ago by Greg P
CanuckSwimFan
Reply to  Greg P
1 month ago

I’m extremely doubtful she swims individual 200fr in Paris .. she has never overlapped individual events at a world championships. Only relays overlapped a bit. It would seem odd that they would try this for the first time at the Olympics given how everything seems to have been carefully managed up to now. And just the timing of it. Day 1 400fr heat and final,4×1 free , Day 2 200 fr heats and semi, Day 3 morning 400 im heats, night 400 im final then 200 fr final. Day 4 – off , day 5 – 7 butterfly, 4×2 relay, 200im . Tis way she has a day(day 2) of rest and gets to focus on one event that she… Read more »

John26
1 month ago

Hmm… I feel like there were benefits to her swimming this if the goal was to recreate the Olympic workload.

If she was going to swim her main four events (no 200free) plus 3 relays in Paris, that would be 13 swims. By dropping the 100back here, she’ll only have 10 swims, half of which she can sleep walk through. The effort for her 5 prelims in Canadian trials are lower than the effort she’d exert in the Olympic prelims, so keeping the 100back made sense

I miss the ISL (Go dawgs)
1 month ago

Didnt quite understand why she entered it in the first place.

Jack
Reply to  I miss the ISL (Go dawgs)
1 month ago

I mean, maybe as a backup if something went wrong and she’d missed one or both of her events before this and she needed a buffer swim with lower pressure to sort of reset herself.

Or, and I don’t know how many off-events she swims in season, but maybe they just blanket-entered her in everything she qualified for during the qualification period. 🤷

Weinstein-Smith-Ledecky-Sims
Reply to  I miss the ISL (Go dawgs)
1 month ago

It was a marketing scam to put fans in the stands. Look, seven days of Summer McIntosh!