Michael Phelps will swim 5 individual races at the 2014 Pan Pac Championships, according to psych sheets that were released on Friday afternoon in Australia.
See the full start lists/psych sheets here.
Phelps is entered in the 200 free as his first event, which is scheduled to be followed by swims in the 100 back, the 100 free, the 100 fly, and the 200 IM.
Technically speaking, Phelps has not qualified to swim any relays in the Gold Coast. With no prelims swims to tinker with, USA coaches will have a tough decision to make as to whether they should pull out a swimmer who won their event (or in the case of the 400 and 800 free relays, placed top four in the event) to replace them with Phelps, or leave the relays as-is.
The medley relay will be an especially tricky decision, as Phelps is the top seed with his 51.17 from prelims at U.S. Nationals, but Tom Shields was the event champion.
Remember that each swimmer who qualified for the meet can enter as many events as they like, but only three swimmers may advance to the finals, and only two can advance to the A-Final. There will also be B-Finals swum at this meet.
Among other interesting individual inscriptions for the meet:
- Ryan Lochte (200 free, 100 back, 100 free, 100 fly, 200 back, 200 IM)
- Katie Ledecky (100 free, 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 1500 free)
- Missy Franklin (100 free, 200 free, 100 back, 200 back)
- Chase Kalisz (200 fly, 200 IM, 400 IM)
- Conor Dwyer (100 free, 200 free, 400 free, 200 IM)
- Thiago Pereira (100 back, 100 fly, 200 IM, 400 IM)
- Kosuke Hagino (200 free, 400 free, 200 IM, 400 IM, 200 back)
- David McKeon (200 free, 400 free, 800 free)
- Thomas Fraser-Holmes (200 free, 200 IM, 400 IM)
- Park Tae Hwan (100 free, 200 free, 400 free)
- Kanako Watanabe (100 breast, 200 breast, 200 IM, 200 free)
It remains to be seen whether Katie Ledecky will really try and jam five freestyle races into a four day meet. In pre-Nationals interviews, she indicated that she was hesitant to expand her schedule much beyond the 400/800/1500/800 free relay until the Olympics, where the 1500 goes away.
South Korea’s Park Tae Hwan has gone back to his standard 100/200/400 freestyle lineup, where he’s at his best. In the past few years, he’s made efforts at both stretching his races longer and at the individual medleys – where he broke National Records at South Korea’s National Championship meet a few weeks ago.
Japan’s Kosuke Hagino, who fits into the new generation of swimmers like Jeremy Stravius in France and Chase Kalisz in the United States who can swim a whole lot of races very well, has pared his schedule down to just five events in this condensed meet. He has skipped the 100 backstroke, which probably opens up a medal spot there.
His teammate Kanako Watanabe has been slowly expanding her schedule from her breaststroke specialty. At this meet, she’s added the 200 free to her more typical 100 breast/200 breast/200 IM. If that race goes the way of the rest of her transitional swims, she should move up and make a final in the event (though medals will be hard to come by around the American and Australian entries).
The 2014 Pan Pac Swimming Championships begin on Thursday, August 21st and run through Sunday, August 24th in the pool at the newly renovated Gold Coast Aquatics Centre in Southport.
The countries participating in this year’s meet include the four founding nations, Japan, Australia, the United States, and Canada, along with New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, Fiji, Venezuela, Tunisia, and Chile.
The open water 10km races will be held on Monday, August 25th at the “Southport Spit.” Those start lists are also included. The biggest surprise there is that American Michael McBroom will attempt the cross over to the open water 10km race.
My only thought on it was Missy herself said she is still learning about swimming outdoors. Why not do the 50 free? It’s like Katie swimming the 100.
I find it interesting that Franklin isn’t doing a “fun”/off event like the 50 free or 200 IM.
Oh.. a good find!
By the time the 50 free and 200 IM start on the last pool day, MIssy will have already completed the 100/200 free and back. Maybe she wants to conserve energy to make sure USA wins 4×100 medley.
Love reading that McBroom will give the open water a shot. As Ous Mellouli showed the world in 2012, a pool distance swimmer’s speed is a huge advantage at the end of a 10K. I think and hope we will start to see more 1500m / 10K hybrids in the future. A medal in both the pool and open water again soon? I would not bet on that, but love seeing pool swimmers look to the 10K event for 2016.
Nothing personall.. but if he does good on Open water he should stick with that… even jaeger would have have to improve to have a chance to medal on 1500 free (With Sun, Cochrane, Paltrinieri and Horton) on World stage.. Mcbroom is much less likely to medal on that..
I didn’t mean to infer it is easier for a pool swimmer to medal in the 10K. Sometimes the venue favors pool swimmers in a big way, like in London 2012 at Hyde Park where there were no waves, tides, extreme temperatures, etc. to navigate in a man made lake. In the open water you have specialists like Lurz, and if you look at the long history of open water prize money races like the RCP Tiburon Mile you see a pattern of elite pool swimmers getting worked by the savvy open water pros who may not have the speed but are experienced strategists in almost every condition.
lochte would not be of any use in the 4 x 1 free if he tries to swim BOTH the 100 fly and 200 back on that same evening. he can easily do 200 free on day 1, 100 free and maybe 4 x 2 free on day 2, 200 back and 4 x 1 free on day 3, 200 im on day 4. i think that four individual finals and two relays is about max.
This weekend there is a significant rain forecast clearing by Monday . That is good because the month the average rainfall is 60 ml & there has only been 4.4 ml so far . The quota might get filled up before Thurday .
However it is forecast to be a SSE movement of air up to 35 kms per hour which is breezy .( mostly it peaks at 3 PM ) & a 80% chance of rain for August 21 -22. Sometimes these weaken before they hit land .
The racing will still be good but brrrrhh!
Oh God, Lochte. I have my doubts about him in the 100 back, and the 100 fly is iffy too, with Phelps and Shields in the mix. 200 back is certainly doable, if he swims it a touch less aggressively than he did at Nationals. An A-final spot in the 200 IM is effectively in the bag, IMO. 100 free is always a crapshoot, we’ll see. He’ll have the time in the 200 free to make the relay, it’s just a matter of whether or not the coaches want to put him on it.
And, to a lesser extent, Hagino. Personally, I think he would be golden if he dropped the 400 free (although even without that, his lineup is… Read more »
I think Lochte has better odds in the 100 fly than he does in the 100 back. If I were in Lochte’s position, I’d be focusing on 200 IM, 200 Back, 100 Fly and try to just make relays for the 4×100 free and 4×200 free.
Do you really see Lochte swimming a 200 back, 200 fly, and 100 free (4×100 free relay) triple? That’l be five swims in one day. http://www.swimming.org.au/visageimages/1_SAL/Pan_Pacs/Program_DL.PDF
My thoughts exactly (although you accidentally typed 200 fly instead of 100, we can see what you meant). I think the only 100 he should do is the free. Drop the back and fly.
And the 200 free and 100 back are back-to-back on the first day. No way that goes over smoothly.
Heck, if not for the knee injury, I’d rather him swim the 100 breast. His breast split from the IM last year was 32.8. It’s a safe bet he could be faster on the second 50 of the 100, so with how flaky Cordes is and the fact that Cody Miller is relatively untested on the international stage, there would be a legit shot of Lochte… Read more »
US Men in the 100 Free
Feigne
Adrian
Ervin
Lochte
Phelps
Grevers
Dwyer
Phillips
Jones
McLean
Ellis
Murphy
Malone
Look for some quick prelim times then.
For all the talk of the U.S. Men’s 100 Back, check out the 100 Fly. Five guys entered – seeded 1 – 5.