The United States, much like it did in 2010 and 2011, is using a two-meet selection procedure for the 2015 World Championships.
The results of the A finals at U.S. Nationals, plus the A and B finals at Pan Pacs, will be combined, and the top swimmers will go on to Kazan, Russia next summer in the following order:
- Priority 1: Top 4 athletes in 100 and 200 free, top 1 athlete in each Olympic event added to team
- Priority 2: 2nd athlete in each Olympic event added to the team
- Priority 3: Top 1 athlete in each non-Olympic event (50 back/breast/fly, men’s 800 free, women’s 1500 free) added
- Priority 4: 5th athlete in 100 and 200 free added
- Priority 5: 6th athlete in 100 and 200 free added
There’s a lot of caveats to these rules, so below we’ve done our best to boil them down to a simple table.
- A yellow box means a swimmer has earned an individual swim in that event.
- A bright orange box means a swimmer has earned a relay swim in that event.
- Top 1 athlete in each non-Olympic event has earned a spot
- For now, we’ve taken the top three priorities above, and called those “locks” for Worlds. The U.S. is limited by a 26 man and 26 woman roster size, however, so priorities 4 and 5 we’re calling tentative for now. Those are swimmers denoted below in the pale orange. These swimmers are “on the Worlds team, if there’s enough room for them.” If the non-Olympic event winners make the team in something else, then decline their swim in the non-Olympic event, they aren’t replaced. If the non-Olympic event winners don’t make the team in something else, and decline their spot, then the second-fastest swimmer gets it (not likely to happen very often).
There’s one tab for men, and one tab for women. If you scroll to the right, you can see the full roster through day 3, with the non-olympic events added in as well. After day 3, it looks very likely that the relay alternates will make the team as well, but we will wait until tomorrow to add them to the roster.
Take a look here at the World Championship team through day 2 of Pan Pacs below:
I don’t mind this selection process, but I believe the Americans should do something similar Swimming Australia did for Libby Trickett back in 2011 – host a relay time trial for both 100m and 200m free. When Libby announced her comeback back in late 2010, it was not early enough for her to swim at Trials for the 2011 World Champs team. So what did the coaches do, they decided to hold a special time trial for 6th relay position (heat swimmers) when she was able to swim competitively again. This was unsuccessful for Trickett, but it was successful for Marieke Guehrer (now D’Cruz).
If the American held something similar, it would give the likes of Coughlin, Schmitt, Romano… Read more »
In the land of the free and fiercely litigated, once you file your selection procedures for the Olympics or World Championships, you effectively can’t change it outside of a catastrophic event on the level of the plane crash that took out the 1961 USA Figure Skating World Championship team. Everyone in national team contention knew the selection criteria going in, and had the choice how to train in the lead-up to Irvine.
Call it tough love, and possibly Pan Americans and World University Games squads filled with far bigger names that what you’d usually expect for the international B and C squads.
I thought it was only the stroke 50s that carried automatic qualification to the world championships, as those events are not being competed at Pan Pacs.
Campbell, who is shaded in yellow, has already earned a spot on the team in the 1500? Both Ledecky and Runge are entered in that event for Pan Pacs. Where does it say that only non Olympic event winners from Nationals are considered? The 50 stroke events make sense because they’re not featured at Pan Pacs this year but the women’s 1500 and men’s 800 are still being held.
According to USA Swimming’s 2015 World Championship’s Selection procedures, which can be found here (http://www.usaswimming.org/_Rainbow/Documents/5edc1f69-8d2c-46d6-9fcc-6fd48d4bdddb/USA%20Swimming%202015%20FINA%20World%20Championships%20Selection%20Procedures-FINAL.pdf), it specifically says “The third priority shall include the fastest time in the Finals at the Nationals among Available Swimmers in the Individual Non-Olympic Events.”
Because they do not have all of the Non-Olympic events offered at Pan Pacs, only times in Non-Olympic events swum at the US National Championships will be considered towards making the World Championship team.
In Section B of that link it states that in the mens and womens 800m and 1500m, all finishing times will be considered from US Nationals and Pan Pacific Championships. That’s why Ledecky scratched the 1500m in Irvine. She only needs to beat Campbell’s time and finish as the top American tomorrow to qualify for the 1500m in Kazan next year.
I talked to the National Team staff at Nationals and they explained it as all non-olympic events from nationals would only be considered for World Championships. I will reach out to USA Swimming for clarification and get back to you. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
@BoKnows34: USA Swimming confirmed with us that non-olympic events will only be selected from US Nationals, and that includes the men’s 800 and the women’s 1500 free.
“Because they do not have all of the Non-Olympic events offered at Pan Pacs, only times in Non-Olympic events swum at the US National Championships will be considered towards making the World Championship team.”
That makes sense for the 50 stroke events but certainly not the women’s 1500 or the men’s 800 which are still on the Pan Pacs programme. There were many scratches in these events at Nationals. If there was an automatic Worlds spot on the line for winning those races then I am quite surprised more swimmers did not participate. I would think that Ledecky winning this race at Pan Pacs would give her the automatic spot and then Mann could then be offered to swim the… Read more »
Breeja Larson is now guaranteed a place for the 200m breast, as both her and Micah Lawrence will be the only two USA girls swimming the event at Pan Pacs, following the withdrawal of Melanie Margalis.
Lawrence and Larson already hold the fastest two times from US Nationals.