Iron will have the option to retain pretty much all of its 2020 scorers. Tokyo has lots of stars not registered for the league, but added breaststroker Kanako Watanabe to their pool.
What does the ‘Protected List’ Mean?
This week, the ISL will be announcing each team’s “protected” athletes: effectively, the pool from which each team will be retaining athletes as part of the draft process. To be clear: these are not the lists of athletes that a team will protect; rather, it is the group from which the team will choose up to 15 to protect, and from which fans will pick 1 additional swimmer to protect.
That means the new information will tell us two big things: which athletes have declined or refused to return to their former teams (which is something the league is, apparently, allowing), and which athletes are being given special exceptions after skipping the 2020 season and being allowed to return to their 2019 teams. Also excluded are athletes who didn’t register for the 2021 ISL season.
DRAFT PROCESS IN BRIEF
- On June 21, teams will announce the first 5 athletes that they will retain from their 2021 rosters.
- On June 28, teams will announce up to 10 additional athletes that they will retain from their 2021 rosters. After that, there will be a public vote for a 16th athlete that each team will retain from their 2021 rosters.
- On June 29, teams will draft the remainder of their rosters, with the lowest finishing teams from last year’s season getting advantageous draft positions.
- Click here to read a more detailed description of the draft.
This group of “protected” athletes are not yet actually retained. Today’s lists show the athletes who have “confirmed their commitment to remain on their current team if selected by the team’s General Manager or if elected by the fans online, during the ISL Draft.” That means teams can essentially choose to retain athletes from these lists.
An athlete who doesn’t agree to stay with their team from last season will enter the draft pool as a rookie. Unretained athletes from this list will enter the draft pool as a veteran.
We also ran through each team’s roster in the spring for a very early look at who each team should try to retain. You can read that story below:
- Analysis: Who should each ISL team retain for 2021?
- Final list of 940 names registered for ISL Draft Pool
Iron Protected Swimmers
| TEAM IRON |
| Alina Zmushka |
| Artsiom Machekin |
| Caroline Pilhatsch |
| Clément Mignon |
| Daria K. Ustinova |
| Daryna Zevina |
| David Verraszto |
| Emilie Beckmann |
| Emre Sakci |
| Guilherme Basseto |
| Ida Hulkko |
| Isabella Hindley |
| Jenna Laukkanen |
| Jessica Vall |
| Katinka Hosszú |
| Kristof Milak |
| Leonardo Santos |
| Marco Orsi |
| Maria Ugolkova |
| Maxim Lobanovszkij |
| Mélanie Henique |
| Nicholas Santos |
| Oussama Sahnoune |
| Ramon Klenz |
| Ranomi Kromowidjojo |
| Robert Glinta |
| Ross Murdoch |
| Thom de Boer |
| Valerie Van Roon |
| Veronika Andrusenko |
| Yakov Toumarkin |
Notes:
- Iron brings back most of its top 2020 scorers. That includes team MVP (and ISL rookie of the year) Emre Sakci and #13 overall scorer Ranomi Kromowidjojo.
- In fact, Iron appears to have the option to bring back every single scorer from last season’s final ranks, aside from #282 overall scorer Danica Ludlow. Ludlow scored 7 points across three meets, but is not registered for the league in 2021.
- Iron also got breaststroker Jessica Vall onto this list. She was not on the roster in 2020, but was part of Iron in 2019.
Tokyo Frog Kings Protected Swimmers
| TOKYO FROG KINGS |
| Ai Soma |
| Anna Ntountounaki |
| Catie Deloof |
| Chihiro Igarashi |
| Cristian Quintero |
| Daiya Seto |
| Kanako Watanabe |
| Katsuhiro Matsumoto |
| Kosuke Matsui |
| Leah Smith |
| Markus Thormeyer |
| Miho Teramura |
| Ryosuke Irie |
| Shinri Shioura |
| Simona Kubova |
| Suzuka Hasegawa |
| Takeshi Kawamoto |
| Tomomi Aoki |
| Tomoru Honda |
| Vladimir Morozov |
| Yasuhiro Koseki |
| Yui Ohashi |
Notes:
- The Tokyo protected group is on the small side, with just 22 names. Tokyo should be able to retain up to 16 of these 22 names.
- The list is small, in part, because a lot of 2020 roster members did not register for the league in 2021. That includes Kosuke Hagino, Natsumi Sakai, Bruno Fratus, Bradley Tandy, Naoki Mizunuma, Reona Aoki, Rio Shirai, Runa Imai, Sakiko Shimizu and Shoma Sato.
- Tokyo should get Daiya Seto back into the mix, though. He was named to the roster but did not compete last season. He’s expected to be a high-impact addition after scoring a whopping 56 points in his single meet appearance in 2019.
- Tokyo also lists Kanako Watanabe on the protected list. She did not compete in the 2019 or 2020 seasons and wasn’t announced with the Frog Kings roster at any point. But it appears she still made it into their protected pool, which is a big get for Tokyo considering how relatively thin their retention pool is.