2022 U.S. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TRIALS
- April 26-30, 2022
- Greensboro, NC
- Greensboro Aquatic Center
- LCM (50m)
- Start Times: Prelims – 9 am ET / Finals – 6 pm ET
- Worlds Qualifying Criteria
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En route to World Championships qualification in the women’s 400 IM, Katie Grimes swam the 3rd-fastest time from a 15-16-year-old American woman. She now sits behind Elizabeth Beisel’s 4:32.87 and Katie Hoff’s 4:36.07.
Leah Hayes also got into the top 5 rankings for the age group with her 4:39.65 during prelims. Hayes returned in finals and put up a 4:40.70 to place 4th overall in the finals.
All-time US 15-16 Women’s 400 IM Rankings
- Elizabeth Beisel – 4:32.87 (2008)
- Katie Hoss – 4:36.07 (2005)
- Katie Grimes – 4:36.17 (2022)
- Ella Eastin – 4:38.97 (2013)
- Leah Hayes – 4:39.65 (2022)
Grimes’ time was also under the current official world junior record in the event, which Alba Vazquez of Spain established back in 2019 at the World Championships. Since then, however, both Mio Narita from Japan and Summer McIntosh of Canada have swum under that mark with a 4:36.71 and a 4:29.12, respectively.
In order to constitute an official world junior record, a swim must be ratified by FINA according and the FINA website at the moment indicates that Narita’s swim is currently “pending”, meaning that it is awaiting ratification. Narita posted that time at a meet in Japan right before McIntosh swam more than 7 seconds faster, but considering its absence from the FINA site, it doesn’t look like McIntosh’s record will become official.
McIntosh raced again a few weeks later and delivered a 4:34.86 at Canadian Trials, which was a bit slower than her 4:29, but faster than Narita’s 4:36. We don’t believe there was drug-testing in place at the meet where McIntosh swam her 4:29, which is a requirement for a World Junior Record, so we don’t expect that swim to be ratified.
Grimes’ swim makes her the 3rd-fastest woman in the world this season.
2021-2022 LCM Women 400 IM
McIntosh
4:29.01 WJR
| 2 | Kaylee McKeown | AUS | 4:31.74 | 05/19 |
| 3 | Katie Grimes | USA | 4:32.67 | 06/25 |
| 4 | Katie Ledecky | USA | 4:35.77 | 07/28 |
| 5 | Katinka Hosszu | HUN | 4:35.95 | 05/29 |
Grimes came into this meet as the 5th seed with a 4:41.37 and got down to a 4:41.02 in the prelims before charging to victory with this 4:36.17 (potential) world junior record. Grimes will race this event in Budapest this summer, likely alongside Olympic silver medalist in the event Emma Weyant who touched in second place with a 4:37.72.,
Grimes raced at the Tokyo Olympics in the women’s 800 freestyle and finished 4th with an 8:19.38. On day 1 of 2022 Trials, however, Grimes finished 4th overall in the 800 with an 8:22.73, missing out on a spot on the team. Grimes still has 3 races to go including the 400 freestyle, 1500 freestyle, and 200 IM. In the 1500, in the absence of Olympic silver medalist Erica Sullivan, Grimes is seeded second to Katie Ledecky with a 15:52.12.
Great performance. Hopefully just the beginning.
Katie Grimes has a tremendous future in that event if she keeps developing her fly, back and especially breast and doesn’t go in too many directions like open water stuff.
She’s tall and has long arms. She’s built for swimming.
Looks like we could have a Grimes/McIntosh rivalry in the years to come. At this point the young Canadian is well ahead but the young American is just starting with IM. I’m happy to see new faces to shake up a little bit my favorite event, the 400 IM.
Maybe she should just swim what she’s happiest swimming… and people shouldn’t over analyze what a teen should do with her swimming future.
If she’s happiest swimming open water… she should do just that. With all the athlete suicides recently (Stanford goalie, Wisconsin: track, JMU: softball) we should be careful about the narrative and pressure around these young athletes.
Thanks for your pseudo-psychology. Anybody who knew what they were talking about would know that running around on the internet and blaming individual people for suicides is a way more dangerous game.
Reading comprehension is not your strength. Not is making inferences.
Pressure, expectations: all contribute to a very serious problem among our youth.
Can we just change the narrative of the junior world record? She had a great swim, celebrate that. Everybody knows the Jr. Worlds standings are suspect at best.
Budapest?
Curious to see what time Katie Grimes posts in the women’s 1500 meter freestyle.
As much as I am glad to see Katie Grimes competing in Budapest I would be happier nevertheless to see this 5sec drop of personal best in 800FR.
Congregations and wish her to find another 5sec in two months to be on podium at WC.
Her freestyle leg in this race looked very powerful. Faster than last leg of McIntosh’s 4:29.12
🤡
As usual, Yozhik and his passive agressive, undermining young female swimmer accomplishment.
Let’s analyze the success of Katie Grimes after she competes at 400 and 1500.
She got on the National team and that is definitely a success. But that was already her forth final today. In three racing days. Four finals is by itself a success and not everybody can do it. But it could be a choice of a weak competition to get qualified for WC. The long distance swimmer (by opinion of many here) adds to her program 200 FR, 200BK(drops final), 400IM. In all these events she betters her personal bests. Great! In 400IM even by 5sec. But at the same time she bounced back at her major event (at least it was a such last year)… Read more »
This seems like a mess that shouldn’t be a mess.
I guess I just don’t understand why Summer’s WJR wouldn’t be ratified by FINA.
Can we get some clarification on why FINA might not ratify a record?
So to reply to myself after doing some digging. As Braden mentions in another reply FINA has a list of mostly reasonable requirements for a meet to be considered certified for records. Drug testing is one of those and it looks like that wasn’t in place for Summer’s meet. I agree that drug testing for a world record certification seems reasonable.
I said mostly for a reason as some of it seems unnecessary. The meet itself needs to be certified for any swim to qualify and part of that is getting paperwork approved by FINA months in advance. Even if all the rules are being followed if paper work wasn’t done right that could nix the whole thing.
So… Read more »
Why wouldn’t Summer’s time be ratified? FINA incompetence or failure to follow drug protocols?
We don’t believe that there was drug testing in place at that meet. All World Records must be drug-tested.
FINA doesn’t ever explain why they don’t ratify certain swims or not. Requiring drug testing for a swim to be ratified as a WR or WJR is, in my opinion, a fair standard. Though I think at this point we’re going to have to start keeping parallel sets of records because the FINA ones are becoming so ridiculous.
If you’re gonna do this, might as well acknowledge that junior swimming existed before 2014 and include Thorpe, Phelps, Meilutyte, Ye Shiwen etc