Sunday morning’s preliminary session will be brief in the sense that there will only be two events. However, with one of those events being a 10-heated men’s 1500 free, the session will run better than three hours.
There are a few semi-significant scratches in the women’s 50 free, though none of them are overly surprising. Dana Vollmer, Missy Franklin, and Allison Schmitt all have dropped the race after all three were probably a bit slower than we expected in the 100 freestyle. Coughlin is sort of the big surprise to scratch this; as she’s struggled through the meet to only a single relay performance in the 400 free relay on her card, the one standard has been her ability to take a 50 out very hard.
In the men’s 1500, the only scratch from the top 30 entries will be Indiana All-American Ryan Hinshaw. That means that Alex Meyer, the American open water Olympian, will be swimming the 1500, though his chances at qualifying for London are a long-shot.
The men’s 1500 won’t be overly powerful at the top, but should show outstanding depth from the Americans.
Disappointed that Coughlin scratched the 50; obviously she’s a big long shot, but would have been interesting to see what she could do given how fast she took out her 100’s.