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Australia’s Emily Seebohm Scratches 200 IM Final

Though official start lists are not out, Swimming Australia has confirmed that Emily Seebohm will scratch the women’s 200 IM final on Monday evening to focus on the 100 backstroke: her best event and best chance at gold.

Seebohm came through the semi-finals as the 6th seed this morning in 2:10.70. To get even bronze, in the least it appeared as though she would have had to beat her own teammate Alicia Coutts, and it would have taken a really special swim to win gold over Katinka Hosszu (2:08.59) and Shiwen Ye (2:09.12).

Instead, her lone events on Monday will be the 100 backstroke prelims and semifinals, where she is the top seed and defending Olympic silver medalist. The 200 IM final would’ve taken place just two heats of men’s 200 freestyle after the 100 backstroke semi-final.

This may ultimately prove well for Seebohm, who in London was the best swimmer in the early rounds of the 100 back, but faltered just enough in finals to let American Missy Franklin have the win. With both women swimming pretty well here, it can be expected that a 58-low will be needed to win the 100 back.

That will pull Great Britain’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor into the final; O’Connor was a 211.33 in the 200 IM in the semi-finals, but her season-best even would’ve put her through.

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AD
11 years ago

Clever move by Seebom though it is unfair to her teammates. She should have done that before the championship started. . she has very little chance against ye and hosszu. Hosszu will lose the 200m im tomorrow if she reaches the 100m back semi and Aus lost today bcos of Coutts’ 200m im.

aswimfan
Reply to  AD
11 years ago

Why is it unfair?

Who in the australian team would have swum 200 IM to replace Seebohm? No one.

Australia sent a small women team to their usual standard.

Scuba Steve
Reply to  aswimfan
11 years ago

Smart move, and very fair.

As Aswimfan said, Australia didn’t have a replacement. Emily would have used the heats and semis in the 200IM for 2 good reasons:
1) To ascertain whether she is a medal chance. Coutts and Ye were likely to be quicker, but you never know on the day – and Chinese swimmers have sometimes lacked consistency (Please don’t take that the wrong way). Ye looked good, and now Katinka is also clearly ahead of C-Bomb, so an easy choice
2) Blow out the first-race-cobwebs before her main event

aswimfan
Reply to  Scuba Steve
11 years ago

Totally agree on every point!

swimmer24
11 years ago

This really bothers me. In a country as deep as Australia, she took away a spot to swim at worlds from someone. It’s really rude. If you’re not going to swim it at Worlds, either don’t swim it at your trials or give it up so someone else who would swim can swim it! This is a very selfish move on her part!

liquidassets
Reply to  swimmer24
11 years ago

I was going to say smart move, but I hadn’t thought of your point. It’s too bad the rules don’t at least allow for substituting anyone else on the team for an individual event, like they’re allowed to do on the relays. But yeah, I guess the time to make the tough decision and scratch would have been at Trials, like Pelton in similar circumstances did, or at least before the deadline, after some thought and more practice, so that another swimmer could be added. I picked Seebohm for 4th overall in the IM, but a medal wasn’t totally out of the question. She will have her hands full in the 100 back, regardless, with both relatively fresh Franklin and… Read more »

Jg
Reply to  swimmer24
11 years ago

Not sure if the 3rd swimmer qualified. Emily needs to keep up the 4 strokes to help her regain the Pre Swine Flu confidence & strength.

This to me shows she is still not back to where she was. Gotta test it out .

aswimfan
Reply to  swimmer24
11 years ago

Before you accuse someone of selfishness, you need to check your facts first:

The third finisher at the AUS trials was Taylor mcKeown in 2:13.55

Even if Seebohm withdrew, mcKeown would not have qualified. Australia set a really tough qualifying cut of 2:11.92 for women 200 IM.

So there!

Leclave
11 years ago

Hey guys, did anybody else noticed that they arent using the new straps for the medals as we have seen in a recent post ?

WHOKNOWS
Reply to  Leclave
11 years ago

Yes… I thought… what’s with the ribbons!

Lane Four
Reply to  WHOKNOWS
11 years ago

I bet either a sponsor or FINA thought the straps were too cutting edge and went with the traditional boring ribbons. Those medals were designed with the colorful straps in mind. It was a dumb dumb dumb change.

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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