2022 U.S. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TRIALS
- April 26-30, 2022
- Greensboro, NC
- Greensboro Aquatic Center
- LCM (50m)
- Start Times: Prelims – 9 am ET / Finals – 6 pm ET
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The 200 IM hits kept on coming on Saturday morning as Shaine Casas opted out of the men’s race at the 2022 U.S. International Team Trials in Greensboro.
Casas’ coaches told SwimSwam he dropped the event due to the scheduling conflict it has with the 200 back at the World Championships.
The 22-year-old would’ve had just one event separating the 200 IM final and the 200 back semis at Worlds had he qualified in the 200 IM. Casas qualified for the U.S. team earlier in the meet by placing second in the 200 back.
The University of Texas-trained pro was one of the favorites to vie for a spot at the World Championships in the event after he dropped a time of 1:56.70 at the Pro Swim Series stop in San Antonio earlier this month.
Casas dropping the 200 IM came after Michael Andrew, the top seed, scratched the event pre-session in favor of the 50 free (though that move was expected).
In the women’s 200 IM, #2 seed and Olympic bronze medalist Kate Douglass was a no-show this morning as well.
Chase Kalisz was the top qualifier out of the men’s prelims in 1:58.15, while breaststroke ace Nic Fink joined Casas in no-showing.
A bit disappointing, I thought this was a better chance to make a team than 100 back
Very weird seeing the two people who, by all accounts, would likely have gone 1-2 in the final (Andrew and Casas) scratch from the heats.
Andrew hasn’t done the work for the 200 IM this year. If you look at his in season times leading into trials, he was much better than his in season times this year. They just focused on speed this year with all the changes with worlds. I think they’ll try to tackle it for 2023.
He started off with base building. I just think he wanted to swim 50 free at worlds and don’t want to risk fatigue from the IM even though he could have placed top 2.
For a guy trying to line up sponsors He’s getting really bad advice or no advice.
Say what you want about Michael Andrews decision making, But he gets a lot of screen time to Show off the products that he endorses
These are the sorts of things that pop up regardless of who it is that makes MP’s 2008 Olympics all the more impressive. As the years start to go by and athletes more and more are dropping events left and right for ‘scheduling conflicts’…..just looking back at his absolutely massive workload he took on over those 8 days should always be celebrated. Just wonder if anyone will ever be able to match that incredible feat.
Especially when you remember that MP was only 19 YEARS OLD in 2004 when he first swam 8 Olympic events. Absolutely phenomenal!
And remember he also qualified for the 200 back as the second fastest swimmer ever (at the time)
Here we go again w/the armchair judgements and assumptions. And some of y’all call HIM pouty lol. Hi pot, meet kettle👋🏼🙄
Exactly
You wonder why these athletes have mental health struggles when we expect them to swim everything, every time and set world records
Pouting
I will never buy the scheduling conflict thing.
This is no knock against Shaine (I am happy to see him make the team!), but will direct this at any of the elite athletes facing difficult choices. You train like 70 hours a week for this meet. It’s just a few days of your life. Unless a major health issue precludes your appearance on the blocks, leave it all in the pool at the meet (reasonable number of races of course, and scratch the superfluous events if you made like 10 qualifying times). Forfeit/scratch the conflicting event(s) later AFTER you’ve actually qualified for multiple events first. It’d be a rare but fortunate dilemma to have.
The end.
Not swimming the 2 IM here is a bit weird, I agree with that. (Unless he never had any possibility of swimming it at worlds and didn’t want to take someone’s spot.) Hell, even scratching the 100 fly was weird to go all-in for the 50 back, I feel like he was oddly too cautious with the lineup this week.
It’s not like his program was gonna be Hagino’s 10,000 swims at 2013 worlds, he’s not even in consideration for any relays at this point.
One more chance Shaine…. we’re all rootin for u here in Aggieland…