The start lists for the 2012 Short Course World Championships have been released on OmegaTiming.com.
Full start lists available here.
The championships will kick off Wednesday in Istanbul, Turkey and run through Sunday, December 16th with 5 full days of action.
Among the most disappointing absences is Spain’s Mireia Belmonte-Garcia, who was the dominant women’s swimmer of the last version of this meet in 2010. She won three golds and a silver in Dubai, but has been running through a lot of drama with her club CN Sabadell since winning Olympic silver, and presumably this has interrupted her training enough to leave her out of the meet.
Japan has entered their two young IM’ers, Kosuke Hagino and Daiya Seto, in a Lochte-less 400 IM. The teenagers should have a great matchup with Hagino coming off of an Olympic bronze medal in London and Seto setting the World Cup record this fall in short course.
Perhaps the most surprising note is that there will be no French 400 free relay. They are the defending champions in the event, and set the Championship Record in 2012. Not only did they not enter a 400 free relay, they didn’t enter any relays, men or women, in the meet after severely cutting back their roster. Given that even a country like Macau entered relays in all three events, French fans will be highly disappointed in this decision. Even with a small team, the French are sending Fred Bosquet, Olympic 50 free champ Florent Manaudou, and Amaury Leaveaux, so there is a medal-contending quartet in attendance to say the least.
Other interesting entries from the French include Manaudou in the 50 breaststroke, instead of the 50 fly. He can really sprint anything, but before he became the world’s best sprint freestyler, he was headed down a butterfly track. The path toward a medal in the 50 breaststroke (Scozzoli, Hetland, Dugonjic) is much straighter than the one in the 50 fly (Lochte, Bosquet, le Clos, Santos, Munoz, Dunford, Shields, etc.)
A full preview will be available tomorrow after we get a chance to peel through all of the events. A general meet preview, including American television schedule, can be seen here.
well said ! Cordes might with Shields be the huge revelations in a few races . Let’s hope they feel good in that pool .
Many of the American swimmers are using Long course seed times since they have never competed in short course meters before (only short course yards): Kevin Cordes, Olivia Smoliga, Megan Romano, etc.
I can’t wait to see Kevin Cordes swim. I have heard a lot about him and I am not sure what to expect. Both Yamaguchi and Benson are the same age (Benson is a year younger ’94) and are both faster in LCM (59. and 60.0 to Cordes 60.4). All three are swimming at this meet which should be interesting. I feel Yamaguchi and Cordes will be the standouts as Benson loses valuable time with his immensely poor underwater work. These three young men could be the future of breaststroke on the men’s side, in LCM at least.
Benson is from 94 not? Yamaguchi is from 94 too..
I think Benson and Cordes have lots of potential but I think Yamaguchi is on a different plane. He’s essentially already moved to the head of the class.
Yamaguchi is a monster like Gyurta when he first appeared.. Those 2 can dominate 200 breast is the next years..
A few of the US swimmers seem to have sandbagged their times a bit. Ryan Murphy’s 200 back seed of 1:57.4 is more than a little slow for him given that he went 1:40 SCY a few days ago. Olivia Smoliga’s and Kevin Cordes’ times seem slow as well. Perhaps they haven’t had a chance to put down solid SCM markers yet. Also, I have to say it, seeing Vlad Morozov with a “RUS” after his name kills me every time, is he still pursuing citizenship? Men’s 100 fly is going to be epic.
I Think Morozov thinks he may have more success being a Russian now than swimming for the US..
yeah, if i was Morozov, i would probably be swimming for Russia as well. Can swim in more events with less competition. For example, making the team for the 100 back and free would be a heck a lot more easier for Russia vice the US.
To be fair, I think this year was an exception in the 100 free. Didn’t Grechin get locked out on 48.2?
And he is probably placing his bets on 4×100 russian relay..
A lot of races will inculde very fast swimmers !!!! so these championships will be very interesting . Many young swimmers have the chance to show their talent ( Cordes , Feigen , Murphy , Dwyer , Shields , Romano , Lia neal , Smoglia , Tosky …) and improve under some
pressure their level of performance . That’s what counts here too .
They’re not sandbagging their seed times. As I mentioned in an earlier comment the seed times for many (if not most) of the US swimmers are long course times. Even Ryan Lochte, the most experienced American swimming international short course, has entered a long course time for his seed in the 100 fly, since he hasn’t swam it SCM.
Interesting to see Halsall in the 100 Free just one day after I read an article that hinted she might be dropping the 100 and concertrating on the 50 instead for now, while she works with new coach Gibson. We’ll see if she starts. Men’s 200 Breast is going to be huge, Gyurta, Jamieson, Willis, Weltz, Koch…Can’t wait for the women’s IM’s either.
i know most of the top swimmers are burnt out from the Olympics, but I wish they would make an effort to come. could it be the location of the championships? maybe if the competition was in a more accessible location more people would show up? of course money isn’t an issue to countries like the US and China but wasn’t there a problem with like South Africa?
but hey, we still got 2013!
Philip
To check brazil case
Cielo had a surgery
Nicolas Oliveira has a elbow problem
Henrique Rodrigues is injured..
Arthur Mendes, Chiereguinni and de Lucca because of NCAA and College Duties.
Thiago Pereira will marry this month so he won´t go.
It is a mix of people won´t being able to go plus some who don´t really care about the competition..
December in Istanbul is not a peak tourist destination. I could understand if several athletes said see ya in Barca next Summer.
Istambul at any time of the year is a very interesting city , unique in Europe ! that’s not a solid argument . It’s just post olympic and i beleive that’s the main reason many swimmers didn’t come ! Nevertheless , it will be interesting with who will be swimming great . Matt Grevers , Ryan Lochte , Anthony Ervin, Allison Schmitt , and many more are still pretty in shape … they will deliver grt races .
We will see what happens ! no need to be sad . There will be many more great competitions . Barcelona 2013 will probably be great in 7 months from now . Cheer up guys
Absence of Muffat is very dissapointing! I didn`t know until now she won`t be at Istanbul. Most expected meeting – and rematch – would have been Muffat v. Schmitt in both freestyle events, 200 and 400.
I think it’s sad that a big number of countries are not represented at their best at these short course championships.
Brazil and Russia taking almost no one (Except Morozov for Russia) France without relays.. who else is sending a weak roster?
The bright side of that is that it allows a number of middle tier swim countries to report back to their umbrella Olympic committees or ministries of sport that, yes, they had X number of swimmers make a semifinal and Y number of swimmers make a final at a World Championship and therefore funding for swimming should be maintained at current levels or increased over the next two years.
Also nice to see a country like Pakistan have enough women at the meet to field relays. Even if they finish DFL, it’s a huge victory they’re there at all, given current political climate in that part of the world.