2023 WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- July 23 – 30, 2023
- Fukuoka, Japan
- Fukuoka Convention Centre
- Long Course Meters (50m)
Bath Performance Centre athlete Freya Anderson was named to the British 29-strong lineup for this month’s World Championships but the 22-year-old has reportedly changed her mix of events.
The relay gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympic Games will be dropping the 100m freestyle event from her program, instead focusing solely on the 200m free individual event as well as the relays. (Swimming World)
The move echoes the decision made by fellow Olympian Duncan Scott who also eliminated the 100m free from his own schedule to focus solely on the 200m IM.
In both cases, a scheduling clash was cited as the reason, with Scott’s 100m free and 200m IM landing on the same day while Anderson’s 100m free prelim/semi-final would have butted up against the women’s 4x200m free relay.
At the 2023 British Swimming Championships (World Trials), Anderson topped the women’s 200m free podium in a new lifetime best of 1:55.89 and won the 100m free in 53.48. The 200m free outing represented her first foray into sub-1:56 territory.
British Swimming set its stiff qualification times at 52.98 in the 100m free and 1:55.86 in the 200m free. Despite falling short, Anderson was named to the Fukuoka roster due to having earned the British Swimming-dictated consideration times.
Anderson was a prelims swimmer on Great Britain’s gold medal-winning mixed 4x100m medley relay at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. She’s also amassed over a dozen relay medals over the course of three long-course European Championships appearances.
Teammate Anna Hopkin was also named to the British roster for Fukuoka and is slated to race both the 50m and 100m freestyle events.
Based on the projected seedings in the W 200 FR the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, Freya Anderson is ranked 9th and Bella Sims is ranked 10th. If Bella Sims is to qualify for the final of the W 200 FR, Bella Sims will most likely need to beat Freya Anderson and Li Bingjie.
How is this article relevant to Bella Sims? why do you always have to mention American swimmers for no reason?
What has Bella got to do with this article?
Sadly not lived up to her early promise. Given the progress of Richards and Large after leaving Bath, does she not entertain following suit?
Perhaps Loughborough would have been a better choice for her.
McNulty will break you or make you(for a short while at least) then break you.
Anderson joins a long list of swimmers to have failed in Bath.
I really like that the GBR team do this. They seem to have a good culture of team success through relays and not putting too much pressure on swimmers to do a heap of events. Hopefully good for longevity in the sport.
I respectfully disagree. I think swimming multiple events takes the pressure off your performance in one or the other. It helps you practice your skills under the pressure of a big meet. Plus, tapering for a big meet is not an exact science; maybe her 100 will be firing in Fukuoka vs her 200! These athletes train SO hard; they should have the confidence that they can perform and recover to swim their next race unless one is immediately after the other.
For a while it looked like Freya was on a similar trajectory to Siobhan- just about 1-2 years behind. But her injury seems to have derailed that, and Summer, MOC and a clutch of other youngsters have emerged. She feels like she’s been left behind as an individual medal prospect, and now likely ‘just’ a very strong relay player. Hope she can find her mojo though, be good to see her added to the fray as medal contender or at least a strong player in the finals.
Its really suprising that she doesn’t think it’s probable that she finals in the 100 by her own admission. Shes made a 100 final at world’s before and she’s just hit a 200 PB. With only 2 Aussies + Americans and alot of the Canadians out i don’t think its impossible for her do so. Is a shame but a team first philosophy is admirable.
“So me and Dave decided to pull me from that because is it realistic I can make the final? Probably not.”
Don’t forget Sjostrom,Haughey,Steenbergen that leaves 1 spot in the final with Hopkin,french and chinese women for it and her season best is 53,48 with a pb 53,31 4 years ago and she swam only 54,81 at Sette Colli less than 2 weeks ago.