Kevin Cordes is the favorite to win the 200 breast in Omaha (Photo: Tim Binning)
Kevin Cordes has long been America’s next hope for breaststroke greatness since Brendan Hansen’s departure from the sport competitively. The Illinois native and University of Arizona grad has been relatively quiet since winning a silver medal in this event at the 2015 World Championships, and is making his final preparations for this summer under the tutelage of Sergio Lopez in Singapore.
His 2:08.05 from World Champs is the fastest time done by an American from last May to now, though he’s been inconsistent this spring. In January at the Austin stop of the Arena Pro Swim Series, he showcased a promising in-season 2:10.63. At a senior level meet in Singapore though, in March, he produced a lackluster 2:13.45. That being said, he’s only raced at two meets this calendar year, so it’s not quite fair to pass too much judgment on how he’ll do this summer. He also holds a personal best of 2:07.86 from 2014. Having spent the last year with Lopez, it would seem that Cordes is ready for a big summer ahead.
Josh Prenot finished 2nd to a Will Licon record in the 200 breaststroke at NCAAs. (Photo Courtesy: Tim Binning)
After Cordes comes a big pack of swimmers all with Olympic potential. NCAA rivals Josh Prenot and Will Licon will have a little extra heat between them after this collegiate season saw Prenot edge Licon in the 400 IM before Licon got the upper hand in the 200 breast. Short course is short course, and Prenot has proved himself more in the big pool with a 2:08.90 that won him gold at last summer’s World University Games. More recently, Prenot was 2:08.58 at the Canadian Olympic Trials. Licon’s 2:10.02 from last summer is solid, but that time definitely won’t cut it in terms of an Olympic berth. The Longhorn has made big strides in this race in SCY, so one would think that he has potential to be well under 2:10.
Cody Miller and Nic Fink are two post-grads who have been around for several years. Fink comes in with the 2nd fastest time in the last year after his 2:08.89 showing at a France-based FINA World Cup meet in August. Miller, for his part, went 2:09.08 in Moscow just days before Fink. These regulars will be joined by a new face– Andrew Wilson. Wilson, who’s been training at the University of Texas with Coach Eddie Reese after taking a year off from NCAA competition for Emory University, blew up in long course after becoming a Division III sensation in just a few seasons with the Emory program. His best time of 2:09.84 is from 200 breast prelims at U.S. Nationals last summer, where he finished third behind Craig Benson and Licon in finals with a showing of 2:10.35.
Reece Whitley is the top 18& under in this event going into Trials (photo: Mike Lewis)
Looking to join the above six in the final at Omaha is NAG-smasher Reece Whitley. Whitley might be the youngest Olympic contender in the field, but he’s also perhaps the biggest, checking in at 6-foot-8. Age and height aside, Whitley has been 2:11.30, registering that time to win the B final of the 200 breast at U.S. Nationals last summer. Notably, that time tied the great Michael Phelps, who swam the exact same time in the A final to finish 5th. The 15-year-old has improved each season at an impressive rate, and could bring the 15-16 NAG down under 2:10 this summer.
BJ Johnson has been as fast as 2:10.09, done at the 2013 U.S. Nationals, but has only been 2:11.90 in the last year. The 28-year-old might have his days of best times behind him, but a best time might not be necessary to make the final in Omaha. Brendan McHugh and Sam Tierney will both be fighting for a spot in the final, too. McHugh has hit his stride in his post-grad years, and the 26-year-old’s three best times were all done last year. Tierney, a Mizzou grad, swam a 2:12.49 at Winter Nationals this past December to make him competitive for this summer.
TOP 8 PREDICTIONS
| Swimmer | Best Time (since 2012) | Predicted Time in Omaha |
| Kevin Cordes | 2:07.86 | 2:07.2 |
| Josh Prenot | 2:08.58 | 2:08.2 |
| Nic Fink | 2:08.89 | 2:08.9 |
| Will Licon | 2:10.02 | 2:09.0 |
| Cody Miller | 2:09.08 | 2:09.0 |
| Andrew Wilson | 2:09.84 | 2:09.7 |
| Reece Whitley | 2:11.30 | 2:10.1 |
| Brendan McHugh | 2:12.81 | 2:12.5 |
Dark Horse: University of Florida commit Chandler Bray swam a 2:14.13 in prelims of the World Junior Championships last summer. He dropped from 54.12 to a national high school record-breaking time of 52.65 in the 100 breast in February, and hasn’t swum a tapered 200 breast, yards or meters, since those World Jr Champs. He’s riding a steady improvement curve and could make some magic happen this summer.
Licon is alsoa pretty large taper swimmer. He was 155-157 throughout the season while training and the. He dropped a 148 at ncaa. I think hes got at least 208 low
And guys, the goal is not to break the world record.
The goal is to win the gold or at least a medal in Rio. Whatever the time!
But…. Cordes will break WR in Omaha and then re-break the WR in Rio to win gold.
Is that wrong?
Do swimmmers have to follow Bobo Gigi’s How to Swim in Olympics play book?
Those goals aren’t mutually exclusive.
Correct.
Bobo, are you familiar with Michael Phelps?
Lemme tell you something, if Phelps’ goal were only to win golds at the Olympics, he would not have won as many golds or broken as many WRs as he has and he would not have become the GOAT swimmer.
If Cordes goes 2.07.20 at trials, swims the fastest time of the year and one month later swims 2.08 and misses the medals, I don’t see the interest.
Again, the goal is just to qualify at trials by keeping a margin of progression to peak in Rio when it counts the most and win the gold!
1. Cordes
2. Prenot
And of course very excited to see what Mr Whitley has in store.
No idea about Licon. Looks like it will be all or nothing.
If he tries to maintain a “margin of progression” he may not make the team. What he should do is swim his best at trials and then swim his best at Rio. Easier said than done. But plenty of swimmers have done PBs at trials and then bettered that again at the Olympics. Why not Kevin? Also they have one more additional week in between trials and the Olympics than they did in 2012 or 2008.
Agree that cordes and prenot are the logical picks but so were shantaeu and Hansen in 2012 and neither made it. The biggest mistake would be pulling a 2009 words soni type of race. going all out in the third race of this painful event could be a big mistake so I doubt cordes is going to try for a 205-6. He will be happy with an AR and win in 207 low. Licon and Whitley have the biggest potential for improvement and if the top two slip up they could pass them in the end.
Don’t understand the number of downvotes on this, it’s dead on.
I’d much rather see Cordes qualify 2nd with like 2:07 mid then drop the hammer in Rio
Not to be offensive, but Cordes is not going to go 2:07.2. He’ll probably be closer to Licon than the WR. Rio is a different story
I tend to agree with SwimSwam’s picks, but with enough uncertainty about several of the top candidates to make it a very interesting race at Trials. I’d say there’s a better than 50/50 chance the WR goes down this year. It obviously won’t be Akihiro Yamaguchi, though. I read an article where he attributed his decline to having lost focus because of school and studies, and that he stopped studying videos of his own and other swimmers’ techniques, but that was at least a year or two ago, and he still hasn’t gotten his form back. I think Cordes has as good a shot at breaking the WR as the other leading candidates; if Lopez has helped him mentally as… Read more »
There is a small army of guys around the world to have gone 2:07. I expect the WR to fall this year, but I couldn’t say to whom.
Agreed. I’m amazed that WR lasted through Kazan.
I see everyone is still sleeping on Andrew Wilson.
they put him in the top 8, i wouldn’t really consider that being slept on. Being an underdog is a good thing in this kind of situation anyway
I realize that putting him in the top 8 is shedding light on his abilities. But they said he is only going to drop .1? In 2014 he went 2:15, in 2015 he went 2:09. I believe he’s going to drop more than .1, especially with him training under Eddie Reese.
and at some point, a point is reached where it,s virtually impossible to make any improvements despite better nutrition, training techniques etc.
At this point, nutrition and training techniques are so modern that it will be impossible to top that exponentially in the future. How much more modern can you possibly get.
unless we have either robots or enhanced humans( legalized gene doping etc) in futuristic Olympics ala science fiction, there won’t be any huge improvements.
We are nowhere near that point.
As someone who reads about nutrition frequently, I can say that we are no where near the peak. There are so many studies released that conflict with one another, not to mention studies with dubious backing (i.e. a study saying sugar isn’t bad, funded by a candy company). Even beyond all of that, the scientists themselves will manipulate the presentation of the information to make their results seem more significant, so that they can continue publishing and getting funding.
Same story with technique and training. We have a lot of coaches with massive amounts of experience training successful swimmers with vastly different approaches, but then we also have many exercise scientists with a very great technical understanding of the human… Read more »