2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Swimming: August 6-13
- Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro
- Prelims – 9:00 a.m/12:00 p.m PST/EST (1:00 p.m local), Finals – 6:00 p.m/9:00 p.m PST/EST (10:00 p.m local)
- SwimSwam previews
- Rio Schedule & Results
- Live Stream (NBC)
In an unexpected move, the Canadian women left Brittany Maclean off of their 800 free relay this morning in the prelims. As per CBC, it wasn’t by choice, it’s because Maclean is reportedly sick.
Swimming in her place this morning was 400 IM finalist Emily Overholt, who didn’t qualify to swim on the relay but isn’t new to this event. She was the silver medalist in the 200 free at last summer’s Pan Am Games, and led-off the relay that won bronze at that same meet.
Overholt and her Canadian teammates did the job this morning, qualifying 6th overall for the final in 7:51.99. Overholt had a solid leg of 1:58.29, and Katerine Savard (1:57.96), Taylor Ruck (1:56.25) and Kennedy Goss (1:59.49) also did their jobs this morning.
Trials runner-up Penny Oleksiak will certainly be added to the roster tonight, but it remains up in the air whether or not Maclean will be able to go.
Oleksiak will replace Goss, and if Maclean can go she’ll take over for Overholt. With Oleksiak and Maclean in the lineup, they are definite medal contenders.
Official line-up for Canada
MacLean is in!
Savard
Ruck
MacLean
Oleksiak
I like it. Savard has been sub 1:58 three times in Rio and Coleman of SWE will have the next lane … maybe help Savard go 1:57 low? If Savard has an “off” swim, there is time to recover.
Ruck is swimming great and MacLean has a history of fast relay splits. Oleksiak is Oleksiak.
Should be a memorable race!
Ok. I guess i’m surprised she would have been planning to swim. I would have thought they would have been resting her anyway. She’s already swum a few races, they had to use Goss as she is a relay only swimmer. Ruck has only swum the 4×1. So would be fresh and has been swimming well. So I’m not sure what the plan would have been.
My take would be that the plan was to not fart around in prelims and just rest Oleksiak.
Hosszu (Hun) , Pellegrini (ITA), Sjostrom/Coleman (SWE) all swam prelims … Canada was 11th at Worlds …. Coming into Rio Goss/Savard were 1:58+ at Trials …. Savard lead off at Worlds at 1:59+ …. For what its worth, I was worried when I saw no MacLean …
You can bet she was a helluva lot sicker than Agnel was.
Go Gold, USA. Go Silver, Canada.
Great as Ruck was this morning, my money is on a drop of at least another 0.5, if not more, even before adding Penny and possibly MacLean. If physically possible, Brittany will do it. And I’d feel more comfortable with Overholt whose PB is 1:57.5 than with Savard, thought the Canadian coaches have certainly been making a few good discretionary call. It will interesting to see their lineup.
Savard’s PB is 1:57.1 from prelims a few days ago. And according to Overholt’s instagram, MacLean will swim tonight. If she’s on typical relay beast form and if the other 3 are at or close to pbs, they could drop 5-6 seconds tonight.
Australia and China will be subbing in swimmers who were in the 200m final and should be dropping a chunk of time relative to prelims. With Oleksiak, I expect Canada to crush the Canadian record and post a nice time; however, catching Australia – China may be too much to ask.
Fingers crossed…
Oh this is not good. I hope Ms. Maclean recovers for tonight and for the 800!