Only 11 Out of 26 US Olympic Swimmers Were On 2018 Pan Pacs Team

Now with two days’ space from the conclusion of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, we’ve been working on ways to quantify the feeling of “well, that was unusual” that we have all left Omaha with.

One suggestion from a Tokyo 2020 Olympian was to examine the number of athletes who were on the 2018 Pan Pacs roster and also on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic roster.

The reason that this comparison is useful is that the Pan Pacific Championships, usually two years before the Olympics but in this cycle three years before the Olympics, is generally viewed as the ‘pool’ of athletes for the Games. When the team was in Tokyo for the 2018 Pan Pacs, this is the group that NBC pulled to do promo shots. This is the group that is on the short path to the Olympic Games.

Now of course we know there will always be surprises. A young swimmer who is rising like a rocket like Katie Ledecky in 2012. A veteran who takes some time off between Olympic Games like Dana Vollmer in 2016.

But generally, because of the looser selection procedures for Pan Pacs that leads to bigger rosters and bigger international lineups, that’s where you can look to peg the majority of the Olympic team.

Except this year.

On combination of the pandemic, the extra year wait, and a very high number of young qualifiers, this year a much smaller-than-normal percentage of the US Olympic team raced at Pan Pacs in 2018.

This was especially pronounced on the women’s side, where this year a whopping 12 out of 20 individual US Olympic swimmers (and 3 out of 6 relay-only swimmers) weren’t on the Pan Pacs roster. That accounts for over half of the Olympic Team.

By comparison, in 2016 there were just 6 individual and 3 relay-only swimmers not on the 2014 Pan Pacs team. In 2012, there were just 4 individual and 4 relay only swimmers not on the 2010 Pan Pacs team.

The men’s roster also has a significant number of non-Pan-Pac’ers on it, though the number doesn’t stand out historically as well as the women’s does.

The Tokyo 2020 men’s roster has 7 individual and 3 relay-only swimmers. In 2014, those numbers were 3 and 4, respectively, while in 2010 they were 7 and 1, respectively. Digging deeper into the lists, the 2010 roster featured swimmers like Anthony Ervin and Brendan Hansen and Scott Weltz who were of an age to race at the 2010 National Championships, but skipped the meet for various reasons.

And so this marks another in a long line of ways to describe the unusual happenings of the 2021 meet, along with the unprecedented (Jake Mitchell‘s “A” cut swimoff and the relay-only swimmer cap) and the superlative.

It’s worth noting that there will be no Pan Pac Championships in 2022 because of the delay in the cycle that will see a long course World Championship meet next year instead, which means we won’t be able to compare 2024 data back.

The Data:

Note: this data was tediously compiled by hand. Let us know if there are any errors or omissions.

Women:

Men: