2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
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During day 4 finals of the 2025 World Championships, SwimSwam discusses the topic of semi-finals, specifically for 200s in the 2028 Olympic Games with the addition of the 50s of stroke. With all of the other events packed into just 9 days of swimming, should 200s have semi-finals?
If there’s no semis the sessions would have no content and would suffer as a spectator event as a result.
Athletes don’t have to be able to compete in every single event. Keep semis!
NO
No semis needed for the 200s. More importantly, those who place in 50s of strokes and mixed medley relays need to just be given ribbons.
There shouldn’t be semifinals for 100s, either. Go back in the last few years’ worth of major international (and national trials) meets and see where the ultimately Top 2/3 swimmers finished after prelims. I once broke it down during 2019 World Champs and only 3 total swimmers were in the 9-16 range after prelims that ultimately ended up on the podium, and 2 of those were in 50s of stroke. It’s pointless besides helping fill time for tv.
‘Fill time for tv’ aka bring viewers and potentially athletes to the sport and keep them entertained and invested in swimming.
Yep. For this reason this conversation is completely ridiculous.
Removing that I think I would still prefer to have semis, but can see case either way.
I’m not against removing them – at least for the non free events that lack the depth.
And lightening the load of the stars is good for the audience, as they may be able to do more events. So there’s pros and cons on each side.
But yes, complaining that it’s ’only for tv’ as if that’s a bad thing is patently ridiculous.
Except now the schedule is beyond packed thanks to the 50s and mixed relays. Would be better off adding 4×50 relays and removing semifinals of 100s and 200s if you want to keep the total tv time
Is it lack of depth in the 200s or is it the time standards or both. Maybe the cut methodology needs to be rethought. The lack of swimmers even at the age group level doing the non free 200 events does not bode well for the future.
Idk about 200 free, but for 200 strokes and IM I feel like there simply isn’t enough depth for semifinals to mean much. Especially the 200 fly, there were only like 3-4 heats in prelims and sometimes there are only 2.
i think if they cut semis for 200’s they should run a 10 lane final