Sweden Releases Qualifying Standards for 2019, 2020 European Championships

Svensk Simidrott, or the Swedish Swimming Federation, has released its selection criteria for several upcoming international meets, including the next 2 European Championships, though specific selection criteria for the Olympic Games has not been yet been published.

Sweden’s Olympic Committee has a set deadline of 10 months before the Olympics to release official qualifying standards for Tokyo 2020: a deadline that comes up in about 3 weeks. Generally, they have a goal of includinig athletes who will finish in the top 8 at the Olympics. Before the 2016 Games, they named 5 individual swimmers and 3 women’s relays to the roster in November of 2015, and beefed up that squad later.

The Swedes will attend a pre-Olympic training camp in Fukuoka, Japan from July 18th-24th before making the short trip to Tokyo for the start of competition.

As for what has been announced, the swimming federation has unveiled its selection procedures for both the 2019 European Short Course Championships and the 2020 European Aquatics Championships in long course.

The team for the Short Course Championships, which will be held from December 4th-8th in Glasgow, Scotland, will start with a pre-selection of athletes who qualified individually for the World Championships, finished in the top 8 at the World University Games, and finished top 8 at the World Junior Championships in Budapest.

The rest of the roster will be filled out with swimmers who hit a set of qualifying standards during the Swedish Championships in Eskilstuna, with other competitions approved for athletes who live and train abroad. For events with preliminary rounds, each country can enter up to 4 athletes; for those with timed finals, countries can enter only 2 athletes.

Additional athletes can be added subjectively based on development potential.

The final roster will be posted in late November.

European Short Course Championships 2019 Time Standards (Must be achieved in evening sessions)

Last week, the federation also announced its selection criteria for the 2020 European Aquatics Championships. The event, held every 2 years, is usually a bigger focus event in the non-Summer-Olympic years, but Sweden won 4 events at the 2016 edition: Sjostrom took gold medals in the 100 free, 50 fly, and 100 fly, while the now-retired Jennie Johansson won the 50 breast. Sjostrom was slower in the 100 free final at the Olympics, but was half-a-second better in the 100 fly with a 55.48 World Record.

The same pre-selected swimmers will be chosen for the 2020 championships as 2019: athletes who qualified individually for the World Championships, finished in the top 8 at the World University Games, and finished top 8 at the World Junior Championships in Budapest. Further, swimmers who make a final individually at the aforementioned European Short Course Championships automatically qualify for the long course edition in May.

Swimmers who aren’t prequalified as above can be chosen by hitting selection standards listed below at the Swim Open Stockholm, primarily, or other Nordic Tour events. The federation again has discretion to appoint “wild card” selections to the roster.

The 2020 European Championships will be held May 11th-17th in Budapest: about 2 months before the Olympics.

European Aquatics Championships 2020 Time Standards