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Dressel, Andrew, Baker, Smith Head US Short Course Worlds Roster

Caeleb Dressel, Michael Andrew, Kathleen Baker and Leah Smith are among the multi-event stars headlining Team USA’s roster for the 2018 Short Course World Championships.

New pros Dressel and Baker, no longer tethered to a college meet schedule, will take on four and five individual events, respectively. Andrew, the summer’s breakout star for the United States, leads all male swimmers with five individual entries, while Smith will enter four races in Hangzhou, China.

Short Course Worlds is typically a unique Team USA lineup, with many of the top names declining spots, either to continue racing a college dual meet schedule or for other reasons. The lineup features a number of top names, but some very notable ones are also absent: five-time Olympic champ Katie Ledecky will not attend, nor will 7-time world champ Simone Manuel, two-time world champ Chase Kalisz or double Olympic champ Lilly King.

Here’s the full list of names from the U.S. 2019 World Championships roster who are not on the short course Worlds roster: Nathan Adrian, Townley Haas, Andrew Seliskar, Conor Dwyer, Jordan Wilimovsky, Chase Kalisz, Grant Shoults, Abrahm DeVine, Jay Litherland, Zach Apple, Jack LeVant, Simone Manuel, Margo Geer, Abbey Weitzeil, Katie Ledecky, Allison Schmitt, Gabby DeLoof, Hali Flickinger, Lilly King, Micah Sumrall, Ally McHugh, Ashley Twichell, Regan Smith, Katie McLaughlin, Katie Drabot, Brooke Forde.

The lineup features 17 women and 18 men. USA Swimming selected its lineup from the overall 2018-2019 U.S. National Team, which was determined by the results of several long course meets over the summer. You can see full selection criteria here. Short Course Worlds will take place in Hangzhou, China from December 11-16.

You can see the full roster below, or by following this link.

Women (17):

  • Haley Anderson
  • Kathleen Baker
  • Lisa Bratton
  • Erika Brown
  • Veronica Burchill
  • Mallory Comerford
  • Kelsi Dahlia
  • Bethany Galat
  • Molly Hannis
  • Madison Kennedy
  • Annie Lazor
  • Melanie Margalis
  • Katie Meili
  • Lia Neal
  • Leah Smith
  • Olivia Smoliga
  • Kendyl Stewart

Men (18):

  • Michael Andrew
  • Gunnar Bentz
  • Michael Chadwick
  • Jack Conger
  • Kyle DeCoursey
  • Caeleb Dressel
  • Matt Grevers
  • Zane Grothe
  • Zach Harting
  • Ryan Held
  • Michael Jensen
  • Ryan Murphy
  • Jacob Pebley
  • Blake Pieroni
  • Josh Prenot
  • Kieran Smith
  • Andrew Wilson
  • Justin Wright

Head Coaches:

  • Women’s team: Brian Smith (Athens Bulldog)
  • Men’s team: Dave Salo (Trojan Swim Club)

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Tea rex
6 years ago

No Ledecky??? I will stay home and cry.

Lots and lots of relays at worlds… Even more than ncaas. USA will have lots of options, but also a lot of relay only swimmers who probably won’t be too committed to this meet.

Chadwick, DeCoursey, Held, Jensen, Pieroni, Andrew, Dressel
Brown, Burchill, Dahlia, Comerford, Neal, Smoliga, Kennedy

JJJ
6 years ago

Sub-20 50 free? Anyone care to guess on the likelihood? I’m inclined to say it’s a serious possibility. After seeing this roster I’m more excited for SC world’s than I wasn’t for Pan PACs. So many WRs could feasibly drop.

Admin
Reply to  JJJ
6 years ago

The big question is if he’ll hit it in Meters. If his count and turns will be right. Part of the ‘video game’ swims from NCAAs is that he hit his turn and finish so well. Will he be able to perfect that in SCM? He’s never raced SCM before.

Aquajosh
6 years ago

Are there monetary incentives to this meet or would someone like Dressel have been better served by popping off world records at one of the Asian legs of the World Cup?

Admin
Reply to  Aquajosh
6 years ago

We’ll report on this later, but there’s pretty substantial prize money at SC Worlds – $1.173 million total. World Record prize money is bigger too.

Could argue that there’s higher upside if he had done a trio of World Cup races, for example, and won a cluster, but SC Worlds offers offers significantly more money on a per-meet basis (including $15k World Record bonuses).

Pvdh
Reply to  Braden Keith
6 years ago

How does a WR for a relay if one or more of the swimmers is ineligible to split the award?

Admin
Reply to  Pvdh
6 years ago

That would be up to the federation. Each federation decides whether the prize money is paid to the federation or directly to the athletes. In cases of amateur swimmers (which is really only relevant to Americans or foreign swimmers racing in the NCAA or hoping to race in the NCAA) in individual races, USA Swimming has the right (and they probably oughta) take the money on behalf of those athletes, and absorb it. Doesn’t do any good to let FINA keep it. Athletes are allowed to receive awards for results at Operation Gold meets from USA Swimming, so there may be a pass-through loophole: if USA Swimming absorbs all of the money and pays it out, maybe that’s a cheat… Read more »

Philip
6 years ago

Good for Dressel, about time the US starts sending some superstars to the short course worlds!

bobo gigi
6 years ago

And once again we will not see KL destroy SCM world records. She doesn’t really care about SCM. But she thinks long term and I can’t blame her for that. Simone and Lilly are absent but with Baker/Hannis or Meili/Dahlia/Comerford there’s still a great medley relay in perspective.
If Dressel is at 100% we could see some world records fall.

Bo swims
6 years ago

Katie passing up on being the first woman under 15 🙁

Bob
Reply to  Bo swims
6 years ago

Under 15 in what? The 1500 that isn’t being contested for women?

Old Man Chalmers
Reply to  Bo swims
6 years ago

The women’s distance SCM WRs are ridiculously soft. They were amazing when the LCM standards were slower, but katie has almost matched the SCM WRs in LCM. The 400 free WR is only 2.5 seconds faster and the 800 free WR 9.45 seconds faster.

She could be the first woman sub-3:50 if she raced SCM, especially when tapered.

Old Man Chalmers
Reply to  Old Man Chalmers
6 years ago

My bad, 5.45 seconds difference in the 800.

Yozhik
Reply to  Bo swims
6 years ago

1650 yards distance is shorter than 1500 meters. Plus in 1650 SCY race a swimmer has 7 more turns than in 1500 in SCM one. And Katie hasn’t broken 15 min barrier in SCY being short for more than 3 sec.
Your expectations for breaking 15 min in SCM are too optimistic.

Sprintdude9000
Reply to  Yozhik
6 years ago

1650y = 1508.76m

Yozhik
Reply to  Sprintdude9000
6 years ago

My mistake was caused by using incorrect conversion coefficient between yard and meter:
0.9 instead of 0.9144.
But after this too rough (1.6%) approximation I got curious how actually accurate is the measurement of the length of the pool. What is the FINA’s standard?

Blackflag82
Reply to  Yozhik
6 years ago

As already pointed out, SCM is about 8 meters shorter than SCY. If we use KL’s LCM world record as a base for the speed, then that means the extra distance translates to about 5.25 seconds, which would give her a time of around 14:58.7 +/- a few tenths. Her LCM WR converts to the 14:56 range (I know conversions are not the most accurate, but am just bringing it up for comparison in this discussion). The 7 extra turns is kind of the x-factor – would they make her faster or does the extra time underwater create additional oxygen debt which lowers the efficacy of the turn (ie. perhaps we figure .75 seconds per turn advantage early in the… Read more »

CanadianShark
6 years ago

If Dressel is anywhere near his best, we could see a 19 second SCM 50 free. Count me as excited.

Swimmerj
6 years ago

Can’t wait for Baker with her underwaters

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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