What to Watch For: Day 1 Finals at 2014 US Junior National Championships

What You Need to Know For Day 1 Finals:

Full day 1 prelims recap.
Finals Heat Sheets.
Finals Time Line.
All the information you need to follow the meet.
The only scratch from any of the A, B, or C finals was Ally Howe in the girls’ 200 fly. She dropped out of the C Final, and will have more important races to swim later in the meet with the backstrokes (and probably is racing at Nationals next week as well).

Order of Events:

• W 200 fly
• M 200 fly
• W 100 breast
• M 100 breast
• W 800 free (fastest heat)
• M 1500 free (fastest heat)
• Finals are raced in C, B, A order.

What You Need to Watch For on Day 1 Finals:

It appears as though the 2014 Summer Junior Nationals has found its star early, and it’s a home-town kid from Irvine: Corey Okubo. His 1:58.89 in the 200 fly prelim was easily the most impressive swim of the morning, even though it’s not yet Okubo’s lifetime (or even season) best.

Pacing, however, will be the key to watch for in his finals swim. When he went a 1;58.6 at the Swim Meet of Champions earlier this year, he was out in 57.1. At last year’s Junior Nationals where he swam a 1:58.28, however, he was out in 56.75, which is much more similar to the 56.6 that he swam over the first 100 meters on Wednesday morning.

In other words, if Okubo, who now is surely at least a week into his taper, even if he’s saving most of that for Nationals, starts like he did on Wednesday morning and finishes the way he did in June, then his finals swim could be fantastic – something right around 1:57.0. The good news is that this is a first-day swim, so he’ll still be very fresh. The bad news is that this year’s field is nowhere near as good as last year’s field, so by the 150 meter mark, Okubo will be racing alone. How he responds to that sensation will be very telling into how well that back-half goes.

Further down that 200 fly ranking, in 32nd place, was everyone’s favorite swimmer to love or hate, 15-year old Michael Andrew. Andrew had sort of an interesting day at his first Junior Nationals where he’s at an age where there’s big expectations for him. He swam a 2:03.5 in the 200 fly, and followed that with a 1:04.3 in the 100 breaststroke. Both times are good for a 15-year old, but as one coach texted me today “nothing crazy” as we’ve been used to expecting from Andrew. The 200 fly ranks him 19th among USA Swimming 15 & unders since 2001, for example.

The 200 fly time was actually his lifetime best by two seconds – which is an encouraging result. The 100 breast time missed his lifetime best by half-a-second, but was the swim that got him a B-Final swim (A, B, and C finals are being raced at this meet).

So with just one swim in finals, we can see what Andrew can do in the 100 breast. He’ll have good motivation next to him, as 14-year old Reece Whitley, the swimmer who broke many of Andrew’s National Age Group Records in the 13-14 breaststrokes, will be in lane 7 to Andrew’s lane 8. Whitley swam a 1:03.87 in prelims. Those two both have a chance to be the future of American breaststroking, so bookmark this day where they first swam head-to-head (as far as we can find, anyway). Not to be overlooked, at the other end of the pool, is Corey Lau, who tied Andrew in prelims. Lau is a 1999-born swimmer, and while we don’t know his exact birthday, that makes him either 14 or 15 as well. There’s lots of good young talent in the U.S.in the breaststrokes.