After USA Swimming released their Duel in the Pool roster yesterday, Australia released their “initial roster” for the competition, which presumably features the first half of their squad set to race the Americans. The first batch of the roster released only includes four men and zero Para swimmers, which means that the majority of the male and Para swimmers will be likely be released in the second roster announcement.
The Duel in the Pool is set to take place from August 19 to 21 in Sydney, Australia.
Australia’s team is headlined by individual world record holders Kaylee McKeown and Zac Stubblety-Cook, as well as eleven-time Olympic medalist Emma McKeon. Other big names on the roster include relay world record holders Meg Harris and Madi Wilson, as well as 2016 400 free Olympic champion Mack Horton. In fact, every single swimmer on this team competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and has medals to their name.
The roster didn’t specify who would be swimming open water at the competition, although it can be assumed that Tokyo 10k bronze medalist Kareena Lee is doing so.
Retired Olympic gold medalists Grant Hackett and Leisel Jones will be the captains of the Australian team.
Unlike the Americans, who have many of their biggest stars missing from their squad such as Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky, the Aussies seem to be going all-out on this meet. That being said, they do have the home field advantage, making travel easier for their best swimmers. Australia looks to be the favorite to win this Duel in the Pool showdown (at least on the women’s side), and if they end up doing so, it will be the first time in the history of the competition that the United States does not come out victorious.
See the full U.S. team roster here.
Initial Swimming Australia Roster:
Women:
- Tasmin Cook
- Meg Harris
- Chelsea Hodges
- Kareena Lee
- Emma McKeon
- Kaylee McKeown
- Leah Neale
- Brianna Throssell
- Madi Wilson
Men:
- Mack Horton
- Brendon Smith
- Zac Stubblety-Cook
- Matt Temple
Given the already announced FINA schedule and the USASwimming schedule, I’m not sure flying 7,000 miles is worth the 2 days for USA swimmers – we’ll see, though
Waste of time biggest duels not going to happen Titmus Ledecky Caleb Kyle
OK then don’t watch?
They will certainly dominate womens freestyle but USA can keep pace in some other events. Need to see an events schedule probably 2 swimmers per country per event. USA swimmers are they tapering for US nats or holding back for this meet? Do the times at this meet count towards national team qualification. I need to know this.
I don’t even really care about the outcome now. Having the ability to see all these stars swimming over two nights is going to be fantastic. My second ever international (kind of?) event after 2018 CGs!
I think it might be too early to call Aus being the favourites. Yes, our women should beat US comfortably, but the US men’s team is clearly stronger than ours so far.
It will also depend on how points and placements work which seems to be undecided so far.
So far on paper it looks like the US team is cooked
Some bigger names than the US team, but hardly “all out” when missing Titmus, MOC and Chalmers!
We are screwed
I mean as long as no other men show up for them, I think we’ve got a shot.
You are swimming?