USA Swimming has released its selection criteria for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.
This year’s Youth Olympic Games will be held in Nanjing, China from August 16th-28th, and are expected to attract 3,600 athletes across 28 sports.
For this meet, nations that finished in the top 16 of the FINA points standings at the 2013 World Championships can send up to 4 male and 4 female swimmers to the meet, and everyone else just gets two of each, meaning that this meet is all about top-heavy teams.
The meet includes the Olympic schedule with a few small exceptions: no 400 IM, the men swim an 800 free instead of a 1500 free, there’s no 800 free relay, and there’s a mixed medley and free relay.
There are time standards, but for the United States those will be largely (though not necessarily entirely) irrelevant. See those here.
The ‘tryout’ meets for the 2014 for USA Swimming will be:
- 2013 USA Swimming U.S. Open (July 30-August 3rd, 2013 Irvine, California)
- 2013 Junior National Championships (August 5th-9th, 2013 Irvine, California)
- 2014 Austin Grand Prix (Jan. 17-19)
- 2014 Orlando Grand Prix (Feb. 13-15)
- 2014 Mesa Grand Prix (Apr. 24-26)
- 2014 Charlotte Grand Prix (May 15-18)
This year, USA Swimming has not specifically put the meet at a lower priority than the Pan Pacs or Junior Pan Pacs; rather they have said that if athletes choose the Youth Olympic Games, they will be ineligible for selection to the other two big meets. This means athletes would have to choose between a trip to Hawaii, Australia, or China. While it’s unlikely even a young swimmer would choose these Youth Olympics over the senior Pan Pac team, it’s possible that a swimmer who was on the last Jr. Pan Pacs team, also in Hawaii, would want to experience something new in 2014.
Most of this is not new news, but since we first posted the criteria, USA Swimming has moved their timetable a bit earlier. Specifically, athletes will be ranked and offered spots based on their FINA world rankings in the above events on June 9th, 2014 and the Santa Clara Grand Prix will no longer be a selection event.
Remember that just by being the next-best swimmer in a particular event, an athlete is not guaranteed selections. Athletes will be taken, up to two per event, based on being the highest in the FINA rankings.
The 2010 meet was a launching point for plenty of big national and international swimmers. Among the participants were the Ukraine’s Andrii Govorov; Serbia’s Velimir Stjepanovic; Australia’s Kenneth To; Venezuela’s Cristian Quintero; South Africa’s Chad le Clos; China’s Tang Yi; Ukraine’s Daryna Zevina; American National High School Record holder Kaitlyn Jones; and Canada’s Tera van Beilen.
The Americans only finished 10th in that medals table in 2010, with their lone gold coming from Jones in the 200 IM. China and Australia dominated the event.
See selection criteria for other junior national teams for 2014 here.