2016 U.S. OLYMPIC TEAM TRIALS
- Sunday June 26th-Sunday July 3rd, 2016
- Century Link Center – Omaha, Nebraska
- Friday-Sunday – Prelims – 11:00 am EDT Finals – 7:45 pm EDT
- SwimSwam Preview Links & Schedule
- NBC Televison Coverage Schedule
- Psych Sheets
- Live results
- Day Six Prelims Live Recap
All this week we’ve been comparing what it’s taken to advance out of preliminaries at this year’s Olympic Trials to what it took in 2008 and 2012. Remember, it takes a 16th place finish to move on in events where there are semifinals (200m and down), and an 8th place finish to move on to finals for the longer events.
Here’s the comparison of the 8th/16th place times in events from this morning:
| 2008 | 2012 | 2016 | |
| Men’s 50 Free (16th) | 22.56 | 22.68 | 22.45 |
| Women’s 800 Free (8th) | 8:43.65 | 8:36.59 | 8:32.46 |
| Men’s 100 Fly (16th) | 53.49 | 53.52 | 53.28 |
| Women’s 200 Back (16th) | 2:13.52 | 2:13.93 | 2:12.19 |
All four events got faster today versus 2012, in terms of what it took to get a guaranteed second swim.
In the men’s 50 free, there was actually a tie for 15th place, as Bowen Becker and David Williams not only got off the blocks in exactly the same time (0.72 seconds), they both finished in 22.45, almost a quarter second faster than the qualifying time in 2012.
While Katie Ledecky cruised to the top seed in women’s 800 free, Sierra Schmidt, known for pre-race dances, can now call herself an Olympic Trials finalists after touching this morning 8:32.46, over a four second improvement over 2012’s 8th place finish in the longest women’s event.
Andrew Sansoucie earned his semifinals swim in the 100 fly with a 53.38, about a quarter of second faster than what it took to earn a guaranteed second swim in that event in 2012.
Finally, the women’s 200 back showed the most improvement relative to length of today’s event, with a 1.74 second drop in 16th place from 2012 to Quinn Carozza‘s 2:12.19 this morning.