Pan Pacs 2010: 9 Big Things When Picking Through the Psych Sheets

Now that the Psych Sheets are up for the 2010 Pan-Pacs, and David Reider has initiated a Pan-Pac prediction contest to follow up the one he ran for Nationals, it’s time to look through the psych sheets.

Here are 9 things that really jumped out at me when paging through the whole meet, although we will also be posting a day-by-day breakdown of the top stories for each session.

1) Phelps’ schedule change– Michael Phelps has changed his schedule a little from the USA-Swimming National Championships. He has dropped the 200 free–despite mega-rival Paul Biedermann throwing down a 1:45.47 challenge at Euro’s to prove he’s awesome beyond the suit–and added the 400 IM and 100 free to his schedule. He is now scheduled to swim 5 individual events at Pan Pacs: 200 fly, 100 free, 400 IM, 200 IM, and 100 fly.

More than this being Phelps backing down from Biedermann, I suppose this is more of a strategic move on his part. At this point, Phelps is probably strategizing for the 2011 World Championships (remember, Nationals and Pan-Pacs combine as World Championships qualifying). He still seems to be uncertain about what events he will swim headed into the next Olympics, although we can be confident it will be a much lighter schedule than he swam in 2008, and also needs to prove to the coaches that he is still worthy of a spot on the 400 free relay.

It’s interesting, given how he struggled with the longer 200 fly at Nationals, that he has chosen to add the 400 IM to his schedule. Although he is always a competitor in this event, I cannot imagine that he’s in good enough shape to go a great time there. Phelps might be expecting a Lochte scratch, and beyond that the competition is relatively light in this event, so he could be anticipating an easy path to a medal. He may also be planning on scratching the race, although it seems a curious choice to even bother entering it.

2) Is Lochte still uncertain of his knee and groin?- At the 2010 US National Championships, Ryan Lochte seemed to clear up all doubts about the health of his knee and groin by throwing down scorching breaststroke legs in both IM’s. Yet, he still entered himself into 7 individual events (in addition to at least 2 relays he is likely to swim). It makes me wonder if he experienced some soreness after Nationals, or if he’s just being careful.

Of course, like Phelps, he might experiment in a few different events as well, to leave his options open for the World Championships. Even without the uncertain health of his legs, the IM’s are the best candidates for him to drop in favor of other events, given that it would take 4+ second drops from his country mates to knock him out of his World’s spots in those events.

3) Prelims must be treated like finals- For the nations with huge levels of competition (namely, the USA, Japan, and Australia), swimmers must treat prelims like finals. This is because of a funny querk in the Pan-Pac system. Any swimmer who qualified for the meet may swim any other event they like. However, only 2 swimmers from any 1 nation can advance to the finals in any given event. This means that swimmers from certain nations can’t “save themselves” for the finals and just try and coast into the top 8, because they still need to place in the top 2 of their country to final.

For example, in the women’s 100 fly, between the Australian and American women, they hold all of the top 8 season-best times in the field. If the top 8 simply finaled, someone like Aussie Felicity Galvez (who holds her countries second best time this year) would have a good shot at medaling. Instead, she has to hold off four or 5 country mates who are all within half a second of her. This opens the door for someone like Zige Liu of China or Gabriella Silva of Brazil to save a little for the finals.

Of course, this is partially negated by the extremely high level of competition, where anybody taking too much of a break might find themself in the B-final looking in anyways. But definitely something to watch in certain races.

4) Tyler Clary Iron Man lineup? – Tyler Clary is currently entered into 8 individual events. Although not expected to swim any relays, this would be a monster lineup. Normally, I would write this off to him predicting to scratch a few of these events, but if anyone was going to swim 7 or 8 individuals here, Tyler would be the guy to do it. He is always in great shape, and is young enough to recover quickly. Plus, the Pan-Pac schedule is a little more spread out than US Natioanals. I will be very interested to see which of these events he ends up swimming.

The saving grace for him that might allow him to swim all 8 events is that he is likely to final only in 2 or 3 of them, and might be using the rest as time-trials to see where he stands headed into the NCAA season. Not that he’s not plenty fast enough to finish in the top 8 in most or all of these events, but the 2-per-country rule will come into play here. Clary lines up a big portion of his schedule with Lochte and Pehlps, which makes gives him a tough, but not impossible, task. Depending on which events Lochte ends up scratching, Clary might have to earn a finals bid in one of his lesser events–like the 100 back or fly–or by knocking off Peirsol in the 200 back.

5) The USA could sweep the relays – We still haven’t seen official relay lineups, but based on the expected lineup, it’s very possible that Team USA could sweep both the men’s and women’s relays. Although the rest of the world is certainly getting closer and closer to the USA in terms of medal-winners, the USA still has an obscene amount of depth that should give them a good chance to win every single relay. I didn’t pick it this way in my predictions, but also don’t be surprised if every relay goes USA-Australia-Japan.

6) Don’t Pay Too Much Attention to the Psych Sheets – In case you haven’t noticed, the psych sheets are basically rubbish at this point. Some swimmers have used seed times they swam in shiny suits, some are using their season bests. Some of them are clearly mistaken as well (George du Rand, I’m looking at you).

7) The “Special Invites” are a bit of a mystery – The four main nations of the Pan-Pac games, who receive automatic berths, are Australia, Japan, the USA, and Canada. Beyond that, you may notice a few odd entries (specifically, from nations that don’t even border the Pacific namesake), such as a small contingent from Tunisia (including 800m World Champ Ous Mellouli), a group from South Africa, and some Chinese.

I’m still not certain of what to make of these other participants, as they have only swum a small handful (if any) long course meets this summer. Chinese World Record holder Zige Liu is entered as the top seed in both butterfly events, but doesn’t have a single time in the top 150 of the world this summer. George du Rand is entered in all three butterfly events with times faster than the world record, but hasn’t swum an official long course meet this year. He did, however, swim very well at the South African Short Course Championships (where his seed times came from).

All around, big question marks from these invitees.

8) Expect fewer surprises than the National Championships – The 2010 US National Championships was one of the more perplexing and surprising major meets in recent memory. Swimmers like David Plummer and Mike Alexandrov jumped in and knocked off heavy favorites; Jessica Hardy choked away medals in her two best events (100 breaststroke and 50 free) but then nabbed a Pan-Pac berth in the 100 free; and Caitlin Leverenz has everyone sipping the Kool-aid after incredible performances in both IM’s.

I’m not saying that these swimmers can’t come out and shock the world again and win unexpected medals, but it’s not going to happen like it did at Nationals. Some of the top tier swimmers were likely untapered, whereas these surprise darlings were full bore to make sure their seasons didn’t end. There is much more competition at Pan-Pacs, so it’s going to be even harder for a (relative) unknown to swoop in and win events.

9) The surprising improvement of Japan and Brazil – Now don’t get me wrong. It’s been coming for about a decade now. For the past few Olympic/World Championship meets, there’s been plenty of Brazilians and Japanese on the podiums. But all of a sudden, these nations are starting to turn out more and more depth in their “elite” class of swimmers. Whereas Cesar Cielo and Kosuke Kitajima have long been the only well-known names of these two federations, this year’s Pan-Pacs, I feel, is going to be a bit of a coming out party for the depth that these two countries have really worked hard to develop in the past few years.

In addition to the efforts of these individual countries, I think this is further evidence that FINA has done an outstanding job of hammering away at development efforts in South Africa and Asia. These two continents are quickly gaining on their North American, Australian, and European counterparts. Big kudos to FINA, who I think sometimes doesn’t get the credit they deserve for the work they do.