Now that the dust has settled from the 2022 U.S. International Team Trials, we can take a look at some of the data from the event.
Thanks to SwimSwam data expert Barry Revzin, we’ve compiled some stats related to where swimmers were seeded coming in and how things panned out in Greensboro.
Looking at the lowest-seeded swimmers to make the Worlds team in that event, a total of 11 qualified to compete in Budapest after coming in seeded 10th or lower, though most of those come with an asterisk.
Of those 11, 10 came in either the 100 or 200 freestyle, where the top-six finishers in each event qualified for the World Championship team (for relay purposes) compared to the top-two (or one in the stroke 50s) in all of the other events.
The only swimmer seeded 10th or lower to make the team individually in the 100 or 200 free was Claire Weinstein, who had a breakthrough swim to become the fastest 15-year-old American of all-time in the women’s 200 free (1:57.08) and take second behind Katie Ledecky.
The lowest non-100/200 free seeded swimmer to qualify for the team was Kate Douglass in the women’s 200 breaststroke, though that’s due to the fact that Douglass was entered with her short course yards time of 2:02.19, landing her 27th on the psych sheets. In reality, Douglass had recorded an unofficial time of 2:24.02 in the lead-up, which would’ve ranked her fourth on the entry list.
Alex Walsh was the lowest seed to make the team overall, coming in 29th in the 200 free (she finished sixth to qualify for the relay), but that was also with a yards entry time.
The lowest seed with a LCM entry time to make the team was Coby Carrozza, who qualified for the men’s 800 free relay after placing fifth in the 200 free final. Carrozza was seeded 18th in 1:49.10 and clocked 1:46.87 in the final.
LOWEST SEEDS TO MAKE WORLDS ROSTER
- 29th: Alex Walsh in the 200 Free (6th)
- 27th: Kate Douglass in the 200 Breast (2nd)
- 18th: Coby Carrozza in the 200 Free (5th)
- 16th: Hunter Armstrong in the 100 Free (4th)
- 14th: Justin Ress in the 100 Free (6th)
- 13th: Trey Freeman in the 200 Free (6th)
- 11th: Drew Kibler in the 100 Free (4th)
- 11th: Claire Weinstein in the 200 Free (2nd)
- 10th: Trenton Julian in the 200 Free (4th)
- 10th: Hali Flickinger in the 200 Free (4th)
- 10th: Mallory Comerford in the 100 Free (6th)
Only Douglass, Weinstein, Erika Brown and Claire Curzan qualified to swim an individual event at the World Championships coming in seeded outside of the top four:
- 27th: Kate Douglass in the 200 Breast
- 11th: Claire Weinstein in the 200 Free
- 5th: Erika Brown in the 50 Free
- 5th: Claire Curzan in the 100 Back
Six more swimmers qualified as the fourth seed:
- Charlie Clark (men’s 800 free)
- Brooks Curry (men’s 100 free)
- Katharine Berkoff (women’s 50 back)
- Katie Grimes (women’s 400 IM)
- Leah Hayes (women’s 200 IM)
WORLDS QUALIFIERS BY TRIALS SEED
With 62 available qualifying spots for the World Championships, 29 of those went to #1 seeds, while 17 more went to the #2 seed.
In other words, less than 26 percent of the spots on the U.S. World Championship team went to swimmers who came into the selection trials seeded third or worst in their event.
| Trials Seed | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 11th | 12th+ |
| # of Qualifiers | 29 | 17 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Removing the SCY entries, we can also look at the percentage of swimmers per event that improved on their seed time coming in. This excludes the 50s of stroke because the athletes were entered with their corresponding 100-meter times.
The women’s 800 free led the way with 65 percent of swimmers improving on their seed time, while the men’s 50 free and 200 fly followed at 45.8 percent.
The lowest number came in the women’s 100 fly—just 20 percent of swimmers improved their seed time. Interestingly enough, the 100 fly also had the lowest improvement rate for the men (29.0 percent).
IMPROVEMENT BY SEED TIME
Women’s Events:
- 50 Free: 11/33 (33.3%)
- 100 Free: 11/30 (36.7%)
- 200 Free: 8/27 (29.6%)
- 400 Free: 10/25 (40.0%)
- 800 Free: 13/20 (65.0%)
- 1500 Free: 7/18 (38.9%)
- 100 Back: 12/35 (34.3%)
- 200 Back: 11/23 (47.8%)
- 100 Breast: 9/28 (32.1%)
- 200 Breast: 8/26 (30.8%)
- 100 Fly: 6/30 (20.0%)
- 200 Fly: 6/28 (21.4%)
- 200 IM: 6/19 (31.6%)
- 400 IM: 6/22 (27.3%)
Men’s Events:
- 50 Free: 11/24 (45.8%)
- 100 Free: 13/33 (39.4%)
- 200 Free: 14/35 (40.0%)
- 400 Free: 14/26 (53.8%)
- 800 Free: 8/19 (42.1%)
- 1500 Free: 7/18 (38.9%)
- 100 Back: 6/20 (30.0%)
- 200 Back: 8/20 (40.0%)
- 100 Breast: 9/28 (32.1%)
- 200 Breast: 7/19 (36.8%)
- 100 Fly: 9/31 (29.0%)
- 200 Fly: 11/24 (45.8%)
- 200 IM: 10/26 (38.5%)
- 400 IM: 7/23 (30.4%)
When looking at the “data” from the meet, how about charting the number of Top Five swims in the World, for each of the USA events?
Probably make more sense to do that after Aussie trials.
Other than Ledecky the women’s 800 is such a pathetically swum perpetually underachieving event it doesn’t take much of anything for 65% to break their seed times. It’s like the a regulator has been attached to women’s 800 and men’s 400 individual medley.
The seedings are misleading when the collegiate athletes don’t attend the TYR Pro Swim Series events.
Hopefully, the Japanese will schedule the 2023 FINA World Aquatics Championships to commence no earlier than the third week in July.
Why the third week of July?
Because the whole world must accommodate NCAA swimmers and must adjust worldwide championship to the needs of NCAA swimmers.
Refer to the swimming schedule at the last five FINA World Aquatics Championships.
FINA World Aquatics Championships
Swimming Schedule
2011 – 07/24/2011 thru 07/31/2011
2013 – 07/28/2013 thru 08/04/2013
2015 – 08/02/2015 thru 08/09/2015
2017 – 07/23/2017 thru 07/30/2017
2019 – 07/21/2019 thru 07/28/2019
Are they misleading? Nearly all the individual spots went to one of the top 4 seeds — that’s not something that to me suggests a lot of mis-seeding.
For contrast, that wasn’t the case for the Omaha Trials for Tokyo. Only 44 individual spots went to a top-4 seed (out of 56) there. I only use “only” in contrast to Greensboro’s result being 58 / 62 (six more spots for stroke 50s). With 46 of those spots going to a top-2 seed (compared to just 34 for Tokyo). Seems like the seeds turned out to be pretty accurate.
Shouldn’t this be the highest seeds?
No. #1 is usually called the ‘top seed’. If lower seeds were better, then #1 would be the bottom seed.
Looks like a 36.48% improvement for swimmers entered with LCM times while some of them might have had 2 chances (prelim/finals) while others had 1 chance by swimming prelims only (based on the information above in the article).
When will the high school recruit rankings come out? Always look forward to those