2018 SWEDISH NATIONAL SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- November 14-18, 2018
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Meet central
- Results
The 2018 Swedish SC National Championships will be held this week, with the first prelims session kicking off tomorrow, on Wednesday, November 14th. The meet will run through November 18th, this coming Sunday, and is a qualifier for the Swedish team to compete at the 2018 World Short Course Championships.
According to the Swedish Swimming Federation, which lists this meet as one of the Worlds qualifiers, Swedish swimmers who were finalists at the 2018 European Championships this summer were pre-approved to the Swedish team. Those pre-approved swimmers must have notched Worlds qualifying times in their events at Euros, or one of the subsequent qualifier meets, to be named to the team.
In August, Sweden pre-approved a handful of swimmers based on the aforementioned criteria. Those swimmers were World Record holder Sarah Sjöström, Louise Hansson, Sophie Hansson, Victor Johansson, and Erik Persson. Both Hansson sisters swim in the NCAA, Louise at USC and Sophie at NC State, as does Johansson, a freshman also at USC.
Sweden will look to add to their roster as Worlds draws nearer. Notably, Sjöström, who competed at the 2014 World SC Champs but opted out of the 2016 edition of the meet, announced she wouldn’t race at this year’s World SC Champs and would instead compete at the 2018 Energy for Swim meet. That meet has already stirred up controversy, as FINA has since announced that athletes who compete at that meet could face a 1- to 2-year ban from FINA competitions and they’ve also nearly-doubled prize money for the 2018 SC Worlds.
Thus, Sjöström won’t be at the Swedish Nationals this week, though if she were to back out of Energy for Swim, she’s already been pre-approved for a spot on their Worlds team and she has the qualifying times by a long shot already. Meanwhile, Sweden’s rising stars will be battling for roster spots this week.
