2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
- Budapest, Hungary
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Even though she was on the heat sheets for this race, Kaylee McKeown of Australia has no-showed the women’s 100 back prelims despite being the defending Olympic champion and world record holder in this event with an entry time of 57.45. This decision is due to the fact that she wants to focus on the finals of the 200 IM later today.
According to Australia’s head coach, Rohan Taylor, McKeown wanted to take a shot at the 200 IM without having to deal with any other conflicting events.
“The number one thing [Kaylee’s] coach Michael Bohl wants to do is give her international experience in that medley for an investment going forward. Obviously it’s up to her and her confidence and it’s basically she’ll feel more confident just putting all her eggs in the basket for that medley and going for that,” Taylor said to News Corp. “It’s more about managing her programme. She’s going to have a lot of mixed relays, medley relays, 200m back, 50m back, the program’s quite extensive for this week and then we’ve got the Comm Games as well. So taking the opportunity to give her a real shot at the 200m medley to see what she can do fully prepared and that’s basically what they did.”
However, McKeown will still be racing the 100 back at the Commonwealth Games.
Had she chosen to swim the 100 back, she would have had to swim the semifinals in this event in the same session as the 200 IM final. In fact, the two events are almost back-to-back, only being separated by the men’s 200 free semifinals. McKeown’s no-show to avoid a double is very unusual for her, as historically she has swum well even with multiple events in one session. For example, in December 2020, McKeown swam a 2:08.23 200 IM and a 2:05.16 200 back in the same session.
In the 200 IM semifinals yesterday, McKeown finished third in a time of 2:10.17, over a second behind top seed Alex Walsh who won semifinals in 2:08.74. However, her best time of 2:08.19 is only 0.45 seconds off Walsh’s best time of 2:07.84. If she wants a shot at beating Walsh, she is going to have to drop a significant amount of time from her semifinals performance. McKeown came into this meet with the second-fastest 100 back time of the season at 58.31, only trailing Regan Smith‘s world-leading time of 57.76.
This would have been a perfect meet to test how well she can handle back to back events at this level what makes it worse is she’s taken someone else’s spot in the 100 bk who would have loved to be here and not skip the event
There were no swimmers other than O’Callaghan and McKeown with the QT.
Just from the headline, I assumed it was because she was scratching the rest of today/the meet because she was was sick or injured.
Her 2 IM was sorta far off her best yesterday, which made me think something was wrong. Maybe she was just doggin’ it and has a 2:08 in her tonight?
Still odd tho. (A 1:00 was eighth in the 100 back this morning, you’d think she could cruise a 59.mid to make the final.)
What’s the opposite of Iron Lady?
Lady who is carefully considering her event options with her very experienced coach who rarely gets these things wrong?
⬆️That⬆️
Rarely gets things wrong, but is swimming an event with very little shot at folks and they dropped the event where she’s Olympic champion and world record holder.
Are you her coach though? Do you know her plans? You speak like you know what’s best for her.
The handwringing in the comment section is shortsighted and doesn’t consider what’s most reasonable and best for her.
Lol at the downvotes – yet none of y’all can explain why you know what’s better for her.
I’m baffled by Australian womens’ attitude toward the World Championships. They’re treating it like some silly, insignificant dual meet rather than the 2nd most important swim meet in existence. Absentees like McKeon, Cambells, and Titmus. McKeown sitting out her best event, denying fans the McKeown-Smith-Masse matchup that is by far the most exciting story of the last few years. It’s as if their success at the Olympics has them afraid to try here, thinking that if they don’t swim, then they can’t lose, and can still make a claim to be the best based on Olympic performances.
I don’t think that’s what it is at all. This World Championships shouldn’t have happened. 2022 was always the year of Comm Games. Then this got thrown in out of nowhere. You can’t blame people for prioritising the event that was there first.
WCs might usually be second most important. But this one isn’t. It barely counts considering how watered down it is
The World’s was scheduled years in advance. Only the venue has changed.
It was schedule years in advance for last year. How could you miss the part where they were postponed then cancelled then reinstated?
Yes, scheduled for 2021. Then got moved to 2022, and moved again to a different time in 2022. Dude.
Right. That’s what it is.
Couldn’t be anything else.
Like the fact that most of them had either decided to have a year off after the Olympics (the Campbells – Cate has been swimming since like 2008 and I’m sure the Aussies are thankful she hasn’t already retired), or had prioritized the Commonwealth Games since they are in their original scheduled time (as most of the Australians here have already posted) and the WCs were delayed and delayed again.
McKeown is experimenting with her events as evidenced by her swimming both the 200IM and 400IM in competition this year.
Maybe it is precisely because they treat the WC as something that they value a lot, that if they do decide to compete in it they want to have full physical AND mental confidence to do so?? You have to remember what us fans have done to Aussie swimmers mental health over the years, like for example NON-STOP making fun of Cate Campbell/Cam McEvoy for choking in the Olympics, smh
Would love to see Michael Andrew take this strategy …….;)
Oof
The results of the 100 breast sorta made that decision for him.
MA loves to race. BTW CD also didn’t fair well in the 100 free on the relay after 2×50 fly before that. I expected Caleb to be in the high 46. CD swim was disappointing.
This type of decisions really mess with my Pick’em picks!
Damn you!! 😅
I think the main difference is the existence of a semi final which is not seen at domestic level in Australia so it’s easier to do back to back events .. I’d rather not have semis to be honest .. just top 8 from heats to finals in the evening
Amen !! Swimming survived perfectly well during the 80s & 90s without these schedule clogging wastes of time and effort.
Top 8 to finals – miss out = sit out IS cut throat but the reality is that only medallist from last years Olympics was outside the top 8 qualifiers in their event and in average you were only “changing” one, in some cases two, lanes of the final. Ergo … you are just “tinkering on the margins”.
If you want to complain why swimmers aren’t swimming wider programs then get out the torches and pitchforks and get the fat cats of FINA to get rid of semis
There have been a number swimmers who made it happen regardless of semi-finals. If you take this further why not have men swim heats & semis one day and women the next with the programme spread over two weeks then no one has doubles and everyone swims fresh every race?
What’s the point of semis for you? Don’t you just want to see the top 8 race for gold ? High stakes winner takes all , best of the best ..
There have been a lot of World Records in semis. Finals tend to be a more prickly affair.
Comparitively few. Yes, you can put forward the names like Phelps & Lochte ….. but they rarely if ever had to swim relay heats. Those from almost every other country don’t always have that luxury.
You can point to Hosszu but Hungary has rarely had prominent relays during her career ….. and it has been notable that she often ‘scratches’ as meets progress.
Sjostrom would arguably have collected more World titles …. and Olympic medals without having so many needless swims.
Ledecky certainly does swim multiple events …. but how many of them include the extra semi final round ?? Only the 200 …. which she appears to have culled from her schedule.
Cry me a river.
Wow.