Katie Ledecky, Michael Andrew Both Scheduled for 400 IMs on Friday

2017 Arena Pro Swim Series – Mesa

• Mesa, Arizona
• April 13 – 15, 2017
• Series Points/Money after Indy
• Live stream
• Psych sheets
• Friday prelims heat sheets and timeline
• Live results

The biggest story of Friday morning’s preliminary session at the 2017 Arena Pro Swim Series meet in Mesa, Arizona will be Dana Vollmer swimming the 50 free at 26 weeks pregnant. Vollmer revealed on her Facebook page that she would reveal the sex of her second child by the color of her suit – pink for a girl, green for a boy.

That’s more excitement than we usually get at mid-season meets in preliminary sessions.

There’s plenty of other interesting story-lines in prelims on Friday morning, however. The most intriguing of which come out of the 400 IM, where both Katie Ledecky and Michael Andrew are both still entered.

For Ledecky, this will be her first time swimming the race in long course since breaking the American Record in the 400 yard IM at the Pac-12 Championships in February. There she swam a 3:57.68 in the race, leaving her only behind the defending Olympic champion Katinka Hosszu (3:56.54) in the all-time record books (now 3rd, as her teammate Ella Eastin swam 3:57.57 at the NCAA Championships).

Ledecky’s best time in long course is a 4:37.93 from the mid-season Atlanta Classic last year. There’s an outside chance that she’ll swim a best time in prelims.

As for Michael Andrew, who will turn 18 on Tuesday, while he’s the Junior World Record holder in the 200 IM,he’s rarely stepped into the 400 in the past few years. He did cut 12 seconds from his lifetime best at the PSS-Austin meet in January, swimming a 4:26.24, though. He didn’t have a great first day of the meet on Thursday (he was 54.37 for 10th in the 100 fly and 52.36 for 30th in the 100 free), but another best time in the 400 IM on Friday could atone for those stumbles.

The 400 IMs are expected to start at 10:54 Mesa time.

Other notes from Friday’s prelims heat sheets:

• Stanford teammates Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel will race side-by-side in heat 11 of the women’s 200 free, with Ledecky as the top seed and Manuel as the 4th seed. Ledecky, the Olympic champion, is 4 seconds better in long course than is Manuel. The gap is much closer when they race in college in short course. (around 9:20 Mesa Time)
• Local swimmer Taylor Ruck, who just wrapped up the Canadian World Championship Trials where she was hit pretty hard by illness, is still not racing on Friday. It’s still possible she’ll show up on Saturday when school is done for the week to race with her fellow Canadian phenom Mary-Sophie Harvey.
• U.S. National Teamer Conor Dwyer made his post-Olympic debut on Thursday, taking 9th in prelims of the 100 free (50.65) before scratching the final. He’s completely absent from Friday’s heat sheets, meaning a scratch out of the 200 free.
• Cody Bybee also scratched out of the 200 free, and after two days of not competing is probably not going to compete. There was some hopes after he verbally committed to Arizona State this week that the Ohio High School Record breaker would be in attendance at this meet.
• Michael Chadwick has scratched out of 50 free as 6th seed, and appears to not be in Mesa,
• Singaporean Zheng Wen Quah has scratched out of the men’s 400 IM, and will focus his efforts on the 200 backstroke instead.