Women’s 100 free prelims
This 100 free prelim was pretty fast; really faster than I expected that it would be. Femke Heemskerk of the Netherlands took the top seed in 53.75. Jeanette Ottesen of Denmark took the second seed in 53.88, which is right around the time she went in 2009 in the first round in rubber, where she’d go on to place 7th. That’s by far the fastest she’s ever been in textile in this race.
Ranomi Kromowidjojo, also of the Netherlands, swam a 54.10. That gives the talent-dense Northern European region the top three seeds in this race.
Dana Vollmer swam a 54.24, which is a season-best time for her. Camille Muffat, already with two bronze medals in the meet in the 200 and 400, is stepping down into this 100 freestyle, and did well to take the 5th seed in 54.35. The two Australian entries, Yolane Kukla and Alicia Coutts, tied with China’s Yi Tang in 54.37 for the 6th seed.
Auburn swimmer Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, who is the US Open Record holder in short course yards, swam a 54.51 to make this final. That’s her career-best time by roughly four-tenths, which shows that she’s been well able to turn her awesome short course times (besides NCAA’s, she was bronze in the 50 in Dubai in short course meters) into an effective long course improvement.
Natalie Coughlin wasn’t as good here as she was in the early rounds of the 100 backstroke, but still was safely into the final in 54.72. Germany’s Britta Steffen, who is the defending World Champion and World Record holder, snuck into the final in 16th. Considering that her swim of 54.86 was more than half-a-second slower than she was at German Nationals, I’d say she’s suffering from the late-Nationals syndrome that we’ve seen from many German swimmers who swam really fast at that meet.
Full women’s 100 free prelims results.
Men’s 200 backstroke prelims
Scott Clary put on some serious early heat on this 200 backstroke with a winning mark of 1:56.32. He put nine-tenths between himself and the rest of the field, ahead of a young Hungarian named Peter Bernek in 1:57.23. For Bernek, a 2008 Olympian, that’s a career-best by more than a second. At only 19, this already puts him in range of Laszlo Cseh’s National Record (people forget that Cseh was a phenomenal 200 backstroker when he was younger).
Stanislav Donets of Russia, who has maybe the best underwaters in this field, was 3rd in 1:57.30, to just better Ryan Lochte who again easy-stroked his way to a great time (1:57.34). Ryosuke Irie, who tops the World Rankings this year, qualified in 6th. The final qualifier was former Florida Gator Omar Pinzon, who competes for Colombia. His time of 1:58.48 was good enough for 16th, and is by two seconds his personal textile-best time. It looks like his new training grounds at USC is paying off for him in a big way.
Full men’s 200 backstroke prelims results.
Women’s 200 breaststroke prelims
Rebecca Soni really separated herself from the field in this race already, much like she did early in the 100 breaststroke. She swam a 2:23.30. She worked pretty hard for the opening 100 meters or so in this race, and backed off a little bit on the back half. I think Soni’s prelims swim might already be faster than anyone else in this field is capable of going right now, so if she even maintains that time (and I’ll think she’ll improve it), she’s got a gold medal here.
Russia’s Yuliya Efimova, who is a training partner of Soni, took the 3rd seed in 2:25.98. With Leisel Jones dropping this 200 this year, there was some wonder about who the third medalist would be, and Denmark’s Rikke Pedersen established herself in that position with a 2nd seed of 2:25.86.
The medalists likely will be between those three, as the rest of the preliminary heats were very slow overall (leading 2009 bronze medalists Mirna Jukic of Austria, who’s now retired, to exclaim via Twitter that the slow times were making her “angry”). Amanda Beard of the USA took 4th in 2:26.73, followed by a surprise swim from Spain’s Marina Garcia in 2:26.96.
The biggest surprise to not final was Japan’s Satomi Suzuki. She looked pretty average in the 100, but this 200 was supposed to be her race (as the 8th seed coming in). Her teammate Rie Kaneto, however, swam very well to tie for 9th in 2:27.17.
Full women’s 200 breaststroke prelims results.
Men’s 200 breaststroke prelims
Though he’s not as high-profile as some of the “suit swimmers,” Lithuania’s Titenis Giedrius was the co-bronze medalist in 2009, but since then hadn’t been within 5 seconds of that time. For the first time in this meet, we saw a huge swim in one of the non-seeded heats, as Giderius’ 2:10.33 held up from heat 5 of 8 as the top seed in this event.
Christian vom Lehn bucked the German trend of troubles we’ve seen. He was much faster at German Nationals, but here took 2nd in 2:10.67. Eric Shanteau was just behind him in 2:10.77. Shanteau has been going out very well in this race this season (a definite affect of Dave Salo), but without giving up much on his closing kick. Defending Champion Daniel Gyurta was 4th in 2:10.78. Kosuke Kitajima, a medal favorite, was 6th in 2:11.17.
Australia’s Brenton Rickard, who finished 5th in this race in 2009, failed to miss the final in finishing 21st.
Elliott Keefer of Ohio State, who you’ll recall was a late entry to this USA Swimming team, finished 18th in 2:13.13. That was about a second slower than he went at Nationals last year to earn this bid, though with such a late-season shift to his training schedule, it would’ve been hard to match that time.
Full men’s 200 breaststroke prelims results.
Women’s 800 freestyle relay prelims
The American relay looked head-and-heels above the field in the prelims of the 800 free relay, with a finishing time of 7:50.46 to take the top overall seed into finals.
The USA’s Splits were: Missy Franklin (1:56.98), Katie Hoff (1:57.01), Jasmine Tosky (1:59.20), and Dagny Knutson (1:57.27). Franklin’s leadoff time was the fastest split in the field behind Canada’s Barbara Jardin, and if you account for her flat-starting it she was easily the best in the field. Based on that result, along with Morgan Scroggy not being entered in the preliminary relay, it appears that the USA’s finals relay will be Missy Franklin, Katie Hoff (great swim from her), Dana Vollmer, and Allison Schmitt.
The Canadian’s look pretty good, with a total time of 7:52.05, but they were swimming a quartet that will be largely the same as their finals group, so their drop will have to come from swim improvements, not swimmer improvements. Hungary in 7:52.12 looks to be in the same boat.
The young Australians on the prelims relay really underwhelmed. Other than Blair Evans, who split a 1:57.33, they were not good at all. Bronte Barratt anchored in a split of 1:59.09, which is way off of her 1:55.7 from Nationals. They will gain about 4 seconds by substituting Kylie Palmer into the relay for Angie Bainbridge, but that’s not going to be enough to put them atop the medals stand without some other serious improvements. They’ve probably saved Coutts, who was 6th at Nationals, for the final as well.
Really, it appears as though the Americans may have been the only prelims relay amongst major contenders that was going hard, with a lot of finals relay spots on the line. This final should be much tighter, and it’s basically a toss-up between the Americans and the Australians (assuming they’ve got better than this) in the final.
Full 800 free relay prelims results.
Full Session Thoughts
Not a whole lot of big stories out of these prelims. As this meet progresses, we learn less-and-less from the prelims swims. I don’t think anyone can compete with Soni in the women’s 200 breaststroke, though the list of contenders in the men’s 200 definitely grew after the prelims.
This 800 free relay could be an exciting one. The Americans have found their quality 3rd-and-4th pieces, where the Australians don’t know if they have. That is going to be a great final.
Knutson went 1:56.9 flat start in a time trial the other day. She should/might be the 4th leg on that relay.