It’s a bittersweet week. While the world, and by extension the sport of swimming, is starting to emerge from weeks of pandemic-related shutdown, we also face the absence of the season that would-have-been. With U.S. Olympic Trials originally scheduled for this week, we’re taking a day-by-day trip into the hypothetical, analyzing the events that would have happened each day, along with our predictions of how the Olympic roster would have formed, had the season not been halted in the pandemic.
These won’t be full-length previews, and won’t be exhaustive in naming every top contender for the U.S. Olympic team. Our picks will be what we expected to happen in June of 2020, had the season not been shut down at all amid the pandemic. Our 2021 predictions will almost certainly be different when we get closer to the Trials themselves. Feel free to add your own predictions – for both the 2020 Trials and the rescheduled Trials in 2021 – in the comments.
Today would have been the start of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska.
The worldwide coronavirus pandemic obviously had different ideas, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate – and speculate on – the swims that would have been.
Without further ado, our projections for what would have happened today in the COVID-free timeline:
Men’s 400 IM Final
It’s an exact re-run of 2016, with Georgia alums Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland claiming the first two preliminary spots on the U.S. Olympic team. Kalisz bounces back from a rotten 2019 (season-best: 4:13.07) with a return to the 4:07s, and we all immediately start wondering just how tapered he was or wasn’t.
Litherland hits a lifetime-best in the 4:08s, powering away from top challengers Charlie Swanson and Carson Foster with his notoriously bruising freestyle leg.
Men’s 400 free final
It’s a much less eventful men’s 400 free, with Zane Grothe patiently wearing down the field to earn his first Olympic berth. 4th in this event at the last Olympic Trials, Grothe presses into the 3:44s for just the second time in his career and wins by a landslide.
There’s a lot of jockeying back and forth in the rest of the field. 200 free standout Townley Haas and youngster Jake Mitchell push the pace early, but Florida Gator Kieran Smith charges like a freight train through the middle 200 and powers away with a huge drop to 3:45 and his first Olympic bid.
Women’s 400 IM final
Coming off a huge in-season lifetime-best from the Des Moines Pro Swim Series, Melanie Margalis continues what has been an Olympic sweep for SEC-affiliated swimmers on night 1. Margalis shaves a few tenths off her lifetime-best.
Experience and strategy clearly pays off in a tough and talented field. 18-year-old Emma Weyant has a great prelims swim and is the top seed into the final, but Stanford’s Brooke Forde beats her out in the final for the second Olympic spot. Coming off a breakout NCAA title in the yards version of this event, Forde pops a 4:35 for second place at Trials.
Other events today:
- Women’s 100 fly semifinals – NAG records are dropping like flies. Regan Smith breaks her own 17-18 NAG (57.34 from March). Claire Curzan breaks the 15-16 NAG (57.48 from Torri Huske, who also goes under Smith’s old NAG in the 17-18 age group).
- Men’s 100 breast semifinals – it’s breaststroke, so someone has to break the American record in semifinals, right? This time, it’s Andrew Wilson, who clips the American record 58.64 that has stood since 2017.
Olympic Team As Of Tonight:
Women:
- Melanie Margalis (400 IM)
- Brooke Forde (400 IM)
Men:
- Chase Kalisz (400 IM)
- Zane Grothe (400 FR)
- Jay Litherland (400 IM)
- Kieran Smith (400 FR)
As you reported in December, the current 15-16 NAG for girls 100 fly is 57.48, not 57.7. Torri broke it for the third time.
Jared, what are the chances you’ll comeback to try to make the Olympic Team in the 100 Breast?
I am living for this series
I think you’ll enjoy when they do day 4
I’m hoping they have me false start or pull on the laneline
As satisfying as these will be, I hope they don’t completeIy quench your Olympic trials desires. We think you should still aim to take a stab at the real thing next summer. 😉
I’ve got much more confidence in Kieran going 3:43 than Grothe
Agree.
I’m as big a believer in Kieran Smith as there is (I’ve been high on his potential at least as far back as my summer-2017 recruit rankings), but that’s also a huge ask in terms of time drops. Smith has been 3:47.7 as a lifetime-best, and went 3:48 earlier this year. The jump to 3:43 would be absolutely massive. He absolutely could do it, but I’m not sure I’d say it’s the expectation. Grothe has been 3:44.4, 3:45.3 and 3:45.7 the past three years, so I see a 3:44 from him as a fairly realistic prediction.
Jared – That’s a lot of chalk.
I don’t believe Grothe has ever gone 3:43.
3:44.43 in 2017 is his fastest in the STARS database; 3:45.78 at 2019 World’s.
Emma Weyant wins prelims and punches her ticket to Tokyo- come on SwimSwam why no bio for Weyant?
bc SS has their favorites
“we would have” is breaking my heart. Just makes me realize how bad I wanted to be watching/doing swimming full force, while here I am waiting for my team to resume practice tomorrow.
I wouldn’t feel too confident about Kalisz either. That was not a very good first impression tbh. It made me feel like there wasn’t too much consideration. I think Kalisz would do a bit better than last year, but still not as good as before. I feel like he peaked already. Not Kieran Smith in the 400 either…short course 200/500 types who are better at the 500 are usually better at the 200 in lc. He will totally be a challenger but I’m very uncertain here.