2024 TYR PRO SWIM SERIES – KNOXVILLE
- January 10-13, 2024
- Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center, Knoxville, TN
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
The first high-profile meet of 2024 is already here. Next week, the University of Tennessee’s Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center will host the first Pro Swim Series stop of the year.
This is one of the most star-studded Pro Swim Series we’ve seen in a while. In fact, there are a total of 19 swimmers who have won either Olympic or LC World Championship titles entered in the meet. That list includes 16 Americans, headlined by the likes of Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel, and Kate Douglass. Summer McIntosh leads a trio of Canadian gold medalists, alongside Maggie MacNeil and Penny Oleksiak.
Individual Olympic or LC World Champions Entered
- Hunter Armstrong
- Kate Douglass
- Caeleb Dressel
- Bobby Finke
- Nic Fink
- Torri Huske
- Lydia Jacoby
- Chase Kalisz
- Lilly King
- Katie Ledecky
- Simone Manuel
- Maggie MacNeil
- Summer McIntosh
- Ryan Murphy
- Penny Oleksiak
- Justin Ress
- Regan Smith
- Olivia Smoliga
- Alex Walsh
Katie Ledecky, a 16-time individual World Champion and 7-time Olympic Champion, is entered in a normal slate of events for her. Ledecky is set to race the women’s 100 free, 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, and 1500 free, as well as the 400 IM.
While that could potentially lead to a great showdown between Ledecky and Canadian Summer McIntosh in the 400 free, McIntosh is not entered in the event. McIntosh, arguably the top swimmer in the world in 2023, is swimming a pretty slim schedule of events. She’s only entered in the women’s 200 fly, 200 free, 200 IM, and 100 fly. However, this does mean that we’ll still get a race between McIntosh and Ledecky in the 200 free.
Also of note, we’ll get to McIntosh go up against Regan Smith in the 200 fly, as well as Kate Douglass in the 200 IM, both of which should be marquee matchups.
For her part, Smith is entered in the 100 free, 200 free, 100 back, and 200 IM in addition to the 200 fly. Meanwhile, Douglass is sticking to her top events, entering in the 50 free, 100 free, 100 fly, and 200 breast to go along with the 200 IM.
As he continues to work back into his top form, Caeleb Dressel has a slim schedule of events as well. Dressel is entered in the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly, as well as the 200 free. Prior to his break from swimming starting in the summer of 2022, Dressel had gotten into a habit of entering the 200 free and not going through with racing it, so we’ll see if he ends up racing it or not next week.
In addition to the Olympic Champions and World Champions on the psych sheets, there are plenty of high profile swimmers. Michael Andrew is set to compete in the 50 free, 100 breast, 100 fly, and 100 back. Other notable swimmers entered include Abbey Weitzeil, Gretchen Walsh, Olivia Smoliga, Taylor Ruck, Kayla Sanchez, Jack Alexy, Claire Curzan, and Kieran Smith, among many others.
There are also quite a few star junior swimmers (18 & under) who are entered in the meet. Of course, we’ve already gone over Summer McIntosh, who is 17. Here are some of the other star juniors entered:
Notable Junior Swimmers
Heilman was a member of the 2023 U.S. World Championship team, swimming the 200 fly individually and winning a gold medal as a member of the men’s 4×100 medley relay, of which he swam on the prelims relay.
The youngest swimmer on this list, Charlotte Crush, a 15-year-old out of Lakeside Swim Team, is one of the top up-and-coming swimmers in the US. She’s entered in the 50 free, 100 free, 100 back, 200 back, and 100 fly at this meet.
The younguest swimmer is Juan Vallmitjana with 14 years old
rooting for a dressel comeback!!!! hopefully he races well and tbh he wont swim 200 free at the olympics anyways
Aw not the psych sheet listing the 200 FR women’s WR and misspelling Mollie O’Callaghan’s first AND last name.
Regan will scratch
She’s already announced her withdrawal
Why?
Sick last month so missed training
She said in an interview that she was diagnosed with mono last month
no 200 fly battle then…
And so begins the cascade of scratches…
Good choices for McIntosh. She doesn’t need to prioritize the 400s. We know what a 400 freestyle vs Ledecky would look like at this stage. The wild card events for McIntosh are the 200s, specifically the freestyle and individual medley. I think this meet will establish McIntosh as favorite for Paris in 200 medley and more dangerous than the Australians prefer to believe in 200 freestyle.
Too bad Douglass has such a loaded schedule on day 3. It would have been interesting to see McIntosh and Douglass fresh in the 200 individual medley. In fact, a competent meet organizer would have scheduled that for day one.
This is also the same event lineup as at last year’s TYR, where she set 3 WJRs, then proceeded to reset them all at Trials. Not racing the 400s here leaves an opportunity for a spectacular time drop like at trials last year.
I think the messaging from all of McIntosh’s meets since we’ve known her name is that her coaches have preferred quality to quantity and have steered her from schedule conflicts would would compromise peak performances.
There were opportunities to test out doubles e.g 400free final/ 200IM semis in 2023, that they did not take. I would be surprised if they did a U turn and had her compete in the 200free in the same session as her most likely gold (400IM). The 200free is her least likely gold of her 5 events, and the Canadian team will probably see 4 individual golds (or even 3) as a monumental success. A 5th medal in the 200free is not needed if… Read more »
The issue with the 200 free is that she is well behind both Australians in terms of time and it’s a terrible conflict in Paris for her. I don’t think she’ll swim it.
Of course it’s possible she could win it, but the circumstances make it very unlikely. I don’t think Australians are undervaluing her in the 200 free at all.
Actually, it seems to be the KD fans consider her to be the heavy favourite in the 200IM despite McIntosh having a faster time which is more in line with what you were implying about Australia.
We shall see what happens in Knoxville
Why is Awsi Dooger always talking cr*p about Australians?
What’s his beef?
He is a diehard proponent for fly and die pacing, Australia with few exceptions does the opposite and it makes him very upset when we win versus the ‘braver’ (NA) swimmers.
if she didn’t have the double (and all the other events), sure she would definitely be a lurking threat there in the 200 free. But I think that’s pretty clearly her weakest event out of her 5 best events so unless she plans on swimming all of them, it by far makes the most sense to drop that one. Not to mention that she can probably just lead off on the 4×200 relay if she really wants to try to set a 200 free PB
Looking forward to seeing how some of the Canadian youngsters Ella Jansen, Sienna Angove and Lorne Wigginton look as they prepare for Doha next month. I’m hoping Penny and Taylor swim their scheduled races and start to gain some momentum as we head towards Paris.
Of course Maggie and Summer are always fun to watch and this meet will be no different as the two of them look to continue to build towards the Olympics.
This will be Summer’s first LCM 200 IM since the Canadian Trials last April. A real good test for her as she takes on Kate and Alex both of whom are serious contenders for medals in this event. No scratches please!
I’m looking forward to seeing how Madison Kryger does against this field.
Absolutely! Some how I missed seeing her in the Psych sheet. Madison has a lot of potential.
Ditto, I’m really hoping for the McIntosh v Douglass race we’ve been waiting for!!
I dont know if we Will watch it
Lorne Wigginton is not gonna swim well. Based off US Open I think he’s a little over-hyped by a couple decent swims from the summer.
I hope you’re trolling because it would be quite sad if this is really what you thought
Yet he crushed it a week later at OJI?
Scratches are the one thing you can count on
I was only referring to the women’s 200 IM race when I stated “ no scratches please” as that race on paper has the potential to be one of the more exciting ones of the meet. Unfortunately you are correct about scratches being a regular occurrence with this meet being no exception.
I wish I’d have known sooner that the lineup was gonna be this stacked. It’s only a few hour drive for me so I’d have moved some things around at work and gone Thursday or Friday. I’ll go Saturday and hope there aren’t too many big names who scratch or no-show the final session, that would be really frustrating! Remind me, are finals an A, B, and C final, or just A and B?
From the link above: “The top three heats of swimmers from preliminaries will advance to A, B, and C heats in the Finals. In the Finals, the B heat will swim first, followed by the A heat. After all the A and B Finals heats are completed, the C Final heats will swim”.
Ella and Beata Nelson impersonating each other on the psyche sheet.