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2021 U.S. Olympic Trials Wave I – Finals Preview: 9 Swimmers In 200 IM A Final

2021 U.S. OLYMPIC SWIMMING TRIALS

We’re onto the final session of Wave I of the U.S. Olympic Trials – and one event will have nine swimmers in the A final.

Tennessee Aquatics’ Trude Rothrock did not originally appear on results from this morning’s prelims. But an updated results document shows her qualifying second overall at 2:16.51.

However, instead of bumping Portia Brown (originally listed in 8th, but now bumped to 9th) out of the A final, finals heat sheets show 9 total swimmers in the 200 IM A final. Rothrock is not placed in lane 5, where the second qualifier traditionally goes. She was placed into “lane 0,” which is the outside lane typically kept empty during finals events. Brown remains in the A final, leaving 9 swimmers in that event

USA Swimming confirmed that Rothrock was originally disqualified, but her DQ was overturned late. Instead of re-seeding the event, meet officials decided to add Rothrock as a 9th A finalist.

Some other key races to watch tonight:

From Cut Program To Wave II Qualifier?

21-year-old Missy Cundiff will be a senior this fall at William & Mary. But for a time this past year, Cundiff didn’t know if she’d have a program to return to. William & Mary announced in the fall of 2020 that it would be cutting both its women’s & men’s swimming and diving programs. The school eventually reinstated the women’s program while facing a Title IX lawsuit, and reinstated the men’s program just a few months ago.

Cundiff responded by qualifying first in this morning’s 50 free, and now leads a pack chasing two transfer spots to Wave II Olympic Trials next week.

Spink chasing 15-16 History Again

Camille Spink of Nation’s Capital Swim Club won the 100 free and jumped to #13 in 15-16 age group history on day 1. Now, she’s got a chance to do the same thing again in the 50 free. This morning, the 16-year-old went 25.63 to move to #31 all-time in the age group. A swim tonight of 25.50 or better would move into the top 20, and a swim of 25.27 or better would move into the top 10.

Nosack Also Pushing 15-16 History in 200 IM

16-year-old Diego Nosack is already ranked #16 all-time in the 15-16 age group for the 200 IM. He was 2:03.96 back in May, and wasn’t far off that with a 2:04.33 this morning. Nosack is the #4 seed into the 200 IM A final, and could break into top 10 in all-time age group history with a swim of 2:02.5 or better tonight.

Scratches

There appear to be no scratches from this morning’s heats. There were a couple of scratches out of the timed-final 1500 freestyles that would have swum in tonight’s fastest-seeded heat:

  • Women’s 1500 free: #5 seed Michaela Mattes
  • Men’s 1500 free: #3 seed Joseph Gutierrez

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Horninco
3 years ago

Dear FINA,

However, instead of bumping Portia Brown (originally listed in 8th, but now bumped to 9th) out of the A final, finals heat sheets show 9 total swimmers in the 200 IM A final. Rothrock is not placed in lane 5, where the second qualifier traditionally goes. She was placed into “lane 0,” which is the outside lane typically kept empty during finals events. Brown remains in the A final, leaving 9 swimmers in that event
USA Swimming confirmed that Rothrock was originally disqualified, but her DQ was overturned late. Instead of re-seeding the event, meet officials decided to add Rothrock as a 9th A finalist.

See how it’s done?

GA Boy
Reply to  Horninco
3 years ago

Hot take, this was a bad call on USA Swimming’s part. There were 2 people who won B finals as the 9 seed from prelims who would have placed top two had their time been in A finals. The point of having 8 in finals is to swim the top 8. It is fairly sickening that we live in a society where everything has to be “fair” for everyone. What’s funny though, is this “fairness” often ends in a lack of fairness, for example the 9 seed in literally every other event. On top of that, it clearly goes against the meet information. It was an inherently unfair ruling.

VA Steve
3 years ago

Nice decision on 200IM.

Armchair
Reply to  VA Steve
3 years ago

Nice how? If you overturn a disqualification, why do you not reseed and put Rothrock where she deserves
to be placed based on her time? How is it fair to put her in lane 0 when she qualified 2nd?

Admin
Reply to  Armchair
3 years ago

Yeah it’s weird, because on the other overturned DQ, they bumped the swimmers out.

We’ve reached out to figure out why this happened. We’ll update if we get a response.

spectatorn
Reply to  Armchair
3 years ago

the start list on live result page still only showing 8 swimmers…
https://www.omegatiming.com/File/00011500020205EE04FFFFFFFFFFFF00.pdf

200IM is the first Final of the night, maybe that added to USA Swimming’s logic of not changing lane assignment so as not to make the situation more confusing with two different start list.

At least this is better than having Rothrock’s heat this morning re-swim the morning heat >_<

Last edited 3 years ago by spectatorn
run-dmc
3 years ago

Only 6 swimmer’s in the women’s 1500 free timed final. That’s a miss by USA Swimming, drawing the line at number 40. Maybe they should have drawn it at 30. Between the announcements of the Wave II cuts and the deadline, they would have had 40 competitors in most events anyway.

Better yet, they could have held Waves I and II combined for the 800 Free on Friday the 4th and done the same for the 1500 today. Then any distance swimmer who had additional Wave II cuts would have had plenty of rest before swimming again. This would benefit KL more than most; since she could do a half-taper for the 800 and 1500 and a near-full taper for… Read more »

Deepblue
Reply to  run-dmc
3 years ago

It’s not that deep bro

swimfan
Reply to  run-dmc
3 years ago

Yeah run-dmc is correct. These people who qualify for Wave 2 definitely have a shot at semi finaling possibly, however for these distance events, at least on the women’s side, it’s kinda clear who the two are going to be for the 400, 800, and 1500….

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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