2024 CANADIAN OLYMPIC & PARALYMPIC TRIALS
- May 13-19, 2024
- Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre – Toronto, Ontario
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Sydney Pickrem gave up the 400 IM at the Canadian Olympic Trials this week and was rewarded with a huge time drop in the 200 IM, becoming the 10th-best performer of all-time in the event and throwing her name in the ring in one of the most-crowded events ahead of the Olympic Games this summer.
Pickrem, 26, swam 2:07.68 on Sunday evening in Toronto. That knocked .88 seconds off her best time from Worlds in February and was a breakthrough after five years stuck at 2:08 since first hitting that mark in early 2019.
The difference may have been finally letting go of the 400 IM, an event where at her best from 2017 (4:32.88) she was a medal contender, but one in which she hadn’t been close to that time since.
She swam the event at the 2019, 2021, and 2023 Canadian Trials meets and scratched it many times in those years – including the 2019 SEC Championships, 2021 World Championships, 2022 World Short Course Swimming Championships, and 2023 World Championships.
While she was entered in the race pre-meet, she didn’t swim the 400 IM this week in Toronto.
Splits Comparison:
| Sydney Pickrem | Sydney Pickrem | Sydney Pickrem | Sydney Pickrem | |
| New PB | Old PB | PB from 2023 | PB from 2019 | |
| 50m fly | 27.64 | 27.75 | 27.89 | 28.17 |
| 100m back | 32.76 | 32.80 | 32.89 | 32.65 |
| 150m breast | 36.29 | 36.79 | 36.92 | 37.08 |
| 200m free | 30.99 | 31.22 | 30.91 | 30.71 |
| total time | 2:07.68 | 2:08.56 | 2:08.61 | 2:08.61 |
What is fascinating about the splits comparison is that while her other three legs have stayed largely the same, her breaststroke has marched down substantially. The breaststroker is Pickrem’s best single stroke and her massive advantage over Canadian teammate Summer McIntosh. McIntosh split just 38.16 on that leg and Pickrem briefly took the lead going into the freestyle length.
What makes that interesting is that Pickrem was short of her bests in both breaststroke races this week. In the 100 she was very close in 1:07.27 (her best is 1:07.20), and in the 200 she was further off in 2:23.79 (her best is 2:22.63). That means she’s found a way to improve her IM breaststroke dramatically without sacrificing the other strokes, but that improvement hasn’t translated the same way to the individual breaststroke legs.
Top 12 Performers All-Time, Women’s 200 IM
- Katinka Hosszu, Hungary – 2:06.12 (2014)
- Ariana Kukors, USA – 2:06.15 (2009)
- Siobhan O’Connor, Great Britain – 2:06.88 (2016)
- Summer McIntosh, Canada – 2:06.89 (2023)
- Kaylee McKeown, Australia – 2:06.99 (2024)
- Stephanie Rice, Australia – 2:07.03 (2009)
- Kate Douglass, USA – 2:07.05 (2024)
- Alex Walsh, USA – 2:07.13 (2022)
- Ye Shiwen, China – 2:07.57 (2012)
- Sydney Pickrem, Canada – 2:07.68 (2024)
- Yu Yuting, China – 2:07.75 (2023)
- Yui Ohashi, Japan – 2:07.91 (2017)
Bold = expected medal contenders at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games
SMOC’s name is Siobhan-Marie, not Siobhan.
I do think the WR will go down this summer but overall I now think Hosszu’s WR is underestimated. It will not be easy
Watch, just watch Summer crush the WR in Paris.
If Kate doesn’t do it I want Summer to get the WR.
This title feels a bit sensationalized trying to draw on the narrative that Sydney “gives up/no shows/withdraws” on certain events past few years, specifically the 4IM.
This article could have simply said “Sydney becomes #10 performer 2IM” and then highlighted the insightful breast improvement without drawing in the ‘scratch’ narrative. I don’t believe Summers 4IM WR story was ‘highlighted’ by her 100 back scratch!
Time to let it go folks. Sydney had been a mainstay on Nat team for decade racing at more world level champs meets than just about anyone other than Kylie perhaps, has bravely spoken of mental health challenges, and just had the swim of her career domestically at an older age relatively speaking.
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I didn’t read it like that at all.
More the fact that she’s either nore rested for the 2IM or focused her training to it instead of trying both.
The article (I think) was trying to look for some cause and effect.
whoever ends up winning the W 200 IM in Paris this summer will really really really earn it – it’s gonna be a tight race
Practice makes perfect!
PERFECT practise makes perfect. Clearly she’s making technical improvements to her breaststroke that are allowing her to drop over .5. Well done Sydney…she didn’t give up!
Is this a reference to when she got out after the butterfly? Hadn’t thought about that in forever
She literally inhaled and chocked on water, she didn’t just ‘get out’…
It’s just one of those things that has burrowed deep, deep into my brain.
Anyone know what changes to her training Pickrem credits for her improvement in breast stroke over the past year?
She started training with the men’s team at Texas A&M under Jason Calanog, Jay Holmes, and Mike Walker.
Thought Ohashi missed qualifying – turns out she missed the 400 IM but made the 200