SwimSwam’s Way-Too-Early 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Picks

We might be over a year out from the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials, but that didn’t stop the SwimSwam staff from making way-too-early predictions for what will go down at the meet.

For the purposes of this article, seven different SwimSwam writers (myself, Braden Keith, Robert Gibbs, Sophie Kaufman, Nicole Miller, Anya Pelshaw, and James Sutherland) listed their predictions for who would finish first, second, and third in each event at trials next June. This post will kick off a series of articles on Olympic Trials predictions where each individual writer will break down their picks.

There were a few trends I noticed within the picks.

Everyone thinks Caeleb Dressel will be competing again. Even though Dressel abruptly pulled out of the 2022 World Championships last June and hasn’t competed since, everyone on this prediction panel is confident that he will return come time for 2024. He was unanimously picked to win the 50 free and 100 fly, and everyone but Sophie (who had him in second) picked him to win the 100 free. If Dressel returns to the form that gave him five Olympic gold medals in 2021, he’s clearly the top American male in the sprint events. However, given his absence, his primary sprint coach Steven Jungbluth leaving his training base at Florida, and his apparent injuries, it’s understandable that prospects of his return could be uncertain.

Despite zero senior international team berths, Gretchen Walsh is the overwhelming favorite to become America’s next top female sprinter. Within our predictions, 4/7 writers picked Walsh to sweep the 50 and 100 free events, and everyone but Robert (who by contrast, didn’t have her making the team at all) picked Walsh to earn individual team spots in both the 50 and 100 free. So given that Walsh was only the third-ranked 50 freestyler and fifth-ranked 100 freestyler in America last year, what prompted everyone’s assurance that she’d rise to the top?

There are three potential factors: 1) Walsh’s U.S. nationals performance where an experiment with practice suits allowed her to get over a roadblock and hit best times in almost all her events, 2) The fact that this list was made during the NCAA season, where Walsh is currently undefeated in individual events, and 3) Her long course swims at age 16 (such as a 53.01 100 free relay split) combined with massive short course improvement could be a recipe for long course breakthrough. These factors give Walsh a very high ceiling, and it seems that most over here at SwimSwam believe in her potential.

Qualification is uncertain for swimmers like Michael Andrew and Regan Smith. The two swimmers listed have both been staples of American international teams for the last few years, and yet confidence that they will make it to Paris is relatively low. The predictions about Smith, who will be only 22 in 2024, were the most surprising—two writers have her missing the Olympic team in its entirety, three writers have her missing the team in her specialty backstroke events, and four writers have her missing the team in the 200 back, the event where she holds the world record but hasn’t made an international team in since 2019. Despite the relative pessimism surrounding Smith’s Olympic prospects, her career seems to be headed in a positive direction since she left Stanford to turn pro and train at Arizona State under Bob Bowman. She had a standout showing at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she went faster than her World trials time in the 200 back, swam a personal best in the 200 IM, and broke two U.S. Open meet records. That being said, with how competitive women’s backstroke is, nothing is ever a guarantee.

For Andrew, three writers have him missing the Olympic team, while three other writers have him only making the team in one event after he qualified for three events in 2021. Notably, nobody picked him to make the team in the 200 IM, the event he said he would focus on for the Paris Olympics. While Andrew is a multi-stroke talent for the U.S. men, factors such as the emergence of stars like Shaine Casas and Carson Foster, as well as recent mishaps (like failing to medal individually at short course worlds and missing the 100 breast final at long course worlds) have made the confidence of many of us waver.

There were seven different swimmers unanimously picked to win events. The swimmers that every single writer picked to win in an event include Katie Ledecky in the 200/400/800/1500 free, Caeleb Dressel in the 50 free and 100 fly, Bobby Finke in the 800/1500 free, Nic Fink in the 100 breast, Carson Foster in the 400 IM, and Kate Douglass in the 200 breast. Most of these unanimous picks are self-explanatory—they mainly consist of swimmers who have recently been dominant in their respective events. However, you could say that Douglass being the heavy favorite to win the 200 breast comes as a surprise, considering that Lilly King is the reigning Olympic silver medalist in the event and has a personal best (2:19.92) considerably faster than Douglass’s (2:21.43). That being said, Douglass is four years younger than King and less experienced in the event—a few more times swimming it and her improvement could be tremendous.

Roughly 52.5% of event winners picked were repeat winners from the 2020(1) U.S. Olympic trials. Out of the 196 event winner picks, 103 of them were selections of swimmers who had previously won the same event at the 2020(1) trials. And while it may seem easy to just select who won four (and in this case, three) years ago, repeat winners are rarer than you think—according to SwimmingStats CEO Daniel Takata, only 54 out of 326 Olympic trials event winners (roughly 17%) have won their event at multiple trials (with swimmers who have had event wins in multiple events, each event that they won is counted towards the 326 total). If there’s any meet where a newcomer will surprise us and unexpectedly make the team, it’s Olympic Trials. After all, it’s happened so many times before. However, it’s important to note that since these trials are only happening three years after the previous one instead of four years, we might get more repeat winners than usual.

Without further ado, here are our picks.

Men’s Picks

Women’s Picks