Day 2 of the 2016 Eindhoven Cup included the women’s 200m freestyle event, where 98 females were listed in the results as having participated in the prelim swim this morning.
Per our recap, Robin Neumann earned the top seed with a mark of 1:58.51, followed by fellow Dutch swimmers Andrea Kneppers and Marrit Steenbergen.
Kneppers, who swims for the University of Louisville, earned the 3rd seed after today’s prelims, finishing in a time of 2:00.43. However, Kneppers led off her Dutch squad’s 800m freestyle relay yesterday in a swift 1:58.60, clearing the FINA A standard of 1:58.96. For Steenbergen, the young phenom swam a pedestrian 2:01.41 after scoring a lead-off of her own yesterday of 1:57.91, a personal best by over a second.
Flash forward to the start lists for tonight’s 200m freestyle semi-final, however, and there is one name that magically appeared in lane 4 of the 2nd heat – Femke Heemskerk.
Although Heemskerk anchored the same relay for which Steenbergen led-off and did so in stellar 1:56.06 fashion, 28-year-old Heemskerk was not among the prelim swimmers in the individual 200m freestyle event today.
So, how then did Heemskerk nab the top seed for semi’s in a time of 1:54.58 having not swum the prelims this morning? When SwimSwam asked the Dutch Swimming Federation (KNZB), the press agent of the Eindhoven Swim Cup, Niels Cannegieter, told us, “She swam the 4x200m yesterday. Therefore they spared her for the prelims. As she will be one of the fastest of the world nobody doubted her qualification for the finals.”
Yes, Heemskerk is the 4th fastest 200m freestyler of all time, but it is unprecedented that past performances earn a free pass from even competing in prelims in order to make a semi-finals at an elite, Olympic-qualifying international event.
I have no problem either. It is not like this meet is World Champs or something. I will save my rage for something more important.
I have no problem with this.
Top swimmer privilege. Completely unfair to people who worked hard for four years to be mistreated this way. Heemskerk should be treated the same as the rest of the athletes at the meet.
Unprecedented except maybe in China? Their selection process seems very subjective, with stars like Sun Yang skipping the trials altogether. I’ve been thinking about this after reading about China’s trials and thinking I would be angry if I were competing there–there is a precedent in other sports (such as gymnastics), but there you have considerations such as relative strength in the various events in order to make the strongest team (if two girls are amazing at the balance beam, maybe only one goes because you need someone who can vault). Also, swimming is arguably THE most objective sport out there (ruled by the clock and competitors segregated in individual lanes), so there seems less reason to introduce subjectivity into a… Read more »
If this actually occurred, they should have just gone to the semi-finals with the 16 fastest that were entered and told the rest to come back in 4 years. I’m not easily shocked anymore, but this is truly shocking. What’s even more shocking is that the rest of the participants would be O.K. with it.