The big buzz on Wednesday at the USA Swimming convention in Greensboro, North Carolina is the beginning of a finalized plan for 2016 Olympic qualifying.
The 2016 Olympic Trials, that will determine the team for the Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are tentatively scheduled from July 4th through July 11th, though there are still a few hoops to jump through to set that in stone. It seems as though, in early returns, new National Team Director Frank Busch isn’t backing any plans to move the trials any earlier. That timing is about the same as we saw ahead of the London Olympics in 2012, as the Rio Games start a week later.
The qualifying standards for the Olympic Trials are still two years away. They will be announced in September of 2014, with the qualifying period going back retroactively to July 30th of that year.
Note that these “standards” are not necessarily going to be times. According to a member of the House of Delegates who was at today’s Senior Development Committee meeting, Busch left the impression that he is leaning toward the 2016 Trials standard being a number of athletes rather than a specific qualifying time. This would stir up plenty of debate both to the pro and the negative, so expect much shouting to be done before that becomes set in stone.
Still, if enacted, it would rattle the swimming community and create a new sort of twinge of competitiveness, where the competition is not just against a number, but literally against beating the guy next to you to ensure you’re higher on the rankings than them. The contrarian view would be that it leaves a lot of uncertainty, and doesn’t allow athletes to hit a standard and then time out their tapers for Trials perfectly.
No discussion yet on possible 2016 trials hosts. There will be a lot of sentiment for the host of this event, Greensboro, who has already announced their candidacy.
Also, in 2014 Junior Nationals will be held before Nationals, so as to allow a more natural buildup. These standards will be the same as what they have been in 2012.
The full Quad Plan, that lays out the path ahead to the 2016 Olympics, can be read here.
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You guys who want an elite meet are forgetting about the bottom line…. MONEY AND NUMBERS. With your elite meet idea we won’t have 14,000 in the stands and that is good for the sport.
It was another era but this method was used in 1972 where you called in and got the cutoff time on a recording. Of course now it could be kept up with easily with the electronic world. No nationals were held later and this led to the creation of the Open Meet in Hershey Pa. A predecessor to Jr Nat.
There is no doubt today that the standards should be tougher and for sure only be valid one year out instead of two like it was. Today the sport is so large what ever sytem will not please everyone. How about in ’56 there were no time standards and until 59 no standards at Nat’s or Ncaa’s.
The… Read more »
As someone who attended trials ’12 with my wife and 2 sons, let me say it was a tremendous experience. We all got into it starting with morning prelims and anticipating each night of finals.
It was exciting seeing all the swimmers around town, even those who had no realistic chance of making the U.S. team, especially 2 young men with whom my boys have been swimming for the last few years ( my 13 year old even got one’s autograph). The whole week was inspiring, to say the least.
I can’t imagine the crowds impacted the “stars” in any negative way, except complaints about warmup space. So… would it be possible to get another pool at the… Read more »
Cut the meet size in half and cut the interest and revenue stream by 75% or more. The Michael Phelps buzz will be gone…I suspect there will be numerous other retirements announced – Ervin, Berhens, Torres, Lesak, etc, etc. I think if you limit the size too much you might as well move the trials back to a facility with 7500 or so capacity. The moms and dads are the ones that drive the swimming economy.
I believe in the past, they set standards for Trials just like they set them for Jr’s and Nat’s – devise a cut that will produce a meet of “x” number of swimmers. I bet this quad got messed up with the whole suit fiasco. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the 80’s we had Trials meets with 3-4 heats (of some events) in prelims. I don’t wanna see that low of a number of swimmers. But if the Time Standards committee can come up with cuts for national level meets, then it should be doable to use the same method for trials cuts.
Previous Trials, including the 1980’s averaged about 60-80 swims per event. There were alot of swimmers making the trials with yard times. That was eliminated in 2004 with long course meter times only. In 2004, the women averaged about 48 swimmers and just under 40 swimmers for men. If you look at the standards for 2004 they are almost the same as they were in 2012 (except for a couple of instances). In the 2008, there were any where from 80 to 120 swimmers per event. In 2012, there were between 120-170 swimmers per event.
… why not just make the cuts a fair amount faster?
According to “TODD”, that’s exactly what they plan on doing… there seems to be a misinterpretation of what was actually said at the senior development meeting
Let’s say the cutoff is Top 100 swimmers. What is to stop someone from hosting a last chance time trial and then just fudging the final time to get a swimmer from 101 to 99.
I really don’t see a problem with his proposal per se….the real issue in my mind is the cap number……as long as that number is driven by the logistical limitations of an Omaha-type facility I see no big problem. My guess some number larger than 2008 but smaller than 2012 will work just fine.
Re Greensboro….I assume their proposal involves a temporary pool and the Aquatic Center would be used for warm-up/warm-down?
This type of “outside of the box” thinking is one of the reasons Mr. Busch has this position, I’d imagine.
It seems uncomfortable, alien even, to imagine a meet of this caliber without an objective time to meet. However given the overflow of athletes at this past trials (and the circus surrounding TTs, there in, there out, oh wait, there in again, but at our discretion) it seems very useful in order to help control numbers.
It also accomplishes a few other things, I think. In an environment where all of the emphasis is put on #1 & #2 place it automatically creates the mindset top to bottom (in the meet & across USA swimming) that place is the… Read more »