As the next wave of Speedo Sectional meets kicks off around the country, one location worth watching is Orlando, where a number of Olympians will be competing.
Elizabeth Beisel heads a solid Florida Gators contingent. She’s a legitimate national title contender in several events, and is entered in a tough slate of events including both IMs, the 200 back and fly, plus the 200, 400 and 800 frees.
Hurricane Aquatics’ Katie Hoff will also make an appearance against some of the best competition she’s seen yet in her comeback run. Hoff swam the Mesa Grand Prix, but did not attend any other Grand Prix events, opting instead for local meets. She’s entered in the 50, 100 and 200 frees, plus the 100 back and 100 and 200 breaststrokes.
Fresh off of the French Open, country-less backstroker Arkady Vyatchanin will be in attendance to swim both backstrokes. Don’t be surprised if he drops some big times, as he doesn’t have a set in stone taper meet like most of these swimmers do with U.S. Nationals.
Also competing will be Olympic butterflyer Claire Donahue and Jamaican breaststroker Alia Atkinson.
There’s a host of other big names here, including a Gator squad with swimmers like Mitch D’Arrigo, Brad DeBorde and Sebastien Rousseau. USC’s Cristian Quintero is entered, as is ACC Swimmer of the Year Pavel Sankovich of FSU.
You can find the full psych sheets here. The meet begins on Thursday, and results should be available on Meet Mobile.
Wow! Cool to have a live stream.
Another meet with many big names!
Beisel, Hoff, Vyatchanin, Atkinson, Donahue….
Also very interesting to see Clara Smiddy on backstroke.
I’ve read the names of Carlos Omana and Lauren Driscoll in the psych sheets. I remember they were dominant in the junior ranks a few years ago. They have disappeared from the radars since then.
So why are there TWO meets this weekend? The Georgia Bulldogs meet is reported to be a “meet thrown together in the last 2 months to fill a gap in the competition calendar”. Why didn’t those teams just go to the Speedo Sectonal?
The Speedo Sectional meet is pretty full. Having to resort to chase starts in prelims to keep sessions under five hours.
Some Sectional meets won’t admit swimmers from outside relevant LSC’s as well.
I think a big part of it is control. Eddie Reese used to run this kind of a meet around this time of year. Basically, when the coaches of “elite” swimmers run the meet, they can do whatever they want, limit entries however they want, set up the meet schedule however they want, etc. When a meet, like sectionals, is run by USA Swimming or a USA Swimming LSC, then there’s a ton of other factors to consider, like politics, mass appeal to a greater demographic of swimmers, etc.
At the Bulldog Grand Slam, Bauerle and Bowman and Marsh and Turcotte and a handful of other guys put their heads together and said “what’s the best way we could run… Read more »
I am actually going to the Western Region Speedo Sectional meet next weekend in Gresham Oregon and while Orlando lets in 250 from outside of the section, Gresham has to stay closed as we usually have the largest sectional meet. The short course Western Region meet is actually being split into two meets(Federal Way, WA & Austin, TX) because the meet is regularly holding 1000+ swimmers, and that meet is closed. In Gresham they conduct chase starts and if the meet is to large, they may flight the meet.
Floridaswimnetwork is awesome.
So this won’t have live streaming either??
http://floridaswimnetwork.com/2014/07/07/southern-zone-south-sectional-orlando/
Thanks!! I forgot about FSN!