USA Swimming has published an updated document outlining changes, mostly minor, to its selection procedures for this summer’s World Championships and other international meets.
The changes include limiting which other international meets World Championship team members can attend, updated tie-breaking procedures, and a more explicit statement of recourse for an athlete who is removed from the team for conduct violations.
The 2023 World Aquatics Championships will be held in Fukuoka, Japan from July 14-30, with swimming dates from July 23-30, 2023.
European U23 Championships
USA Swimming’s selection criteria for the World Championships already included not allowing athletes going to Fukuoka to participate in either the 2023 World Junior Championships or 2023 Pan American Games, but now the 2023 LEN European U23 Championships are included in that list.
In spite of not being a European nation, USA Swimming will be sending a team to the inaugural U23 championship under a program that allows one nation from each continent to participate. That meet will take place from August 19-23.
USA Swimming has laid out the order of priority in selection of meets, with one big exception: athletes who are qualified for both the Pan American Games and the European U23 Championships can decline their selection to the Pan American Games and attend the European event instead. They cannot attend both meets, and if they are only selected for the U23 meet and decline that spot, they can not later be selected as a replacement for the Pan Am Games if a spot opens up.
- The Championships
- 2023 World Aquatics Junior Championships
- 2023 Pan American Games
- 2023 LEN European U23 Championship
Tie-Breakers
There are instances, albeit rare, where USA Swimming needs to break a tie to decide the finish order in an event and finalize a team for the World Championships. The 2011 Worlds faceoff between Cullen Jones and Josh Schneider in the 50 free comes to mind as the most famous example.
USA Swimming made some slight tweaks to how those ties will be broken in an update last month.
For one, previously there was a tie-breaking procedure for 4th in a 100 or 200 freestyle event, where the top four are almost-guaranteed, but 5th and 6th are not (depending on roster limits). Under the new rules, they’ll only swim-off for those 5th or 6th place spots if it becomes important in determining who gets on the roster (for example, if the US bumps against its roster limit and there is a tie for 5th, or if there is a tie for 6th).
The swimoff to break those ties will be held at the qualifying competition (Trials).
If something happens after Trials that requires a tie to be broken, then the tiebreaker would be based on the fastest time swum at meets during the World Championship qualifying period: from March 1, 2022 through June 11, 2023, plus US Trials. In this tie-breaker, the time done at the qualifying competition involved in the actual tie is ignored – so in many instances, it would be “who has the second-best time?”
The example is if someone finishes 2nd at Trials and makes the team, but then gets injured a few days later, and there was a tie for 3rd place, the best time among the tied swimmers during the qualifying period, excluding their 3rd place result from Trials, would be used to break that tie.
Appeals to Removal from the Team
The other revision involves an athlete being removed from the team for violations of the Code of Conduct or Team Rules after qualifying but before the team entry deadline. Previously, there was no explicit recourse for athletes removed from the team under this clause in the selection procedure (though there may have been an implied one under other rules).
Now the selection procedure requires an emergency hearing in front of USA Swimming’s National Board of Review within 24 hours of the violation to “determine whether the proposed dismissal or other discipline is warranted.”
This doesn’t happen often, especially with a tight turnaround between the selection meet and Worlds, but there is a famous example of Michael Phelps being removed from the 2015 World Championship team, even though his 6 month suspension had expired. There have been other more minor punishments (including removing an athlete from events but not actually from the team) in other years for violations of Team Rules.
Since the post graduate group has been decimated for the female contingent of USA Swimming, the majority of the women’s national team going forward will be U-23.
Baker – retired
Comerford – MIA
Drabot – retired
Flickinger – MIA
Forde – retired
Manuel – ????
McLaughlin – retired
Schmitt – retired
To clarify, Simone Manuel’s swimming career is currently on life support.
Baker, Comerford, Drabot, McLaughlin were born in the same year as King and Ledecky.
Comerford and Flickinger have been absent from the Pro Swim Series circuit in calendar year 2023.
In addition, Annie Lazor has been well off the pace in the W 50 BR, W 100 BR, W 200 BR in calendar year 2023.
Simone Manuel had some major health issues. She’s still fighting and is in for 2024.
When did Mclaughlin retire?
SwimSwam, will you be covering the Para Swimming World Series Minneapolis/USA Team Trials? This is the highest level para swimming meet in the US this year, and serves as the selection event for World Champs and ParaPan Ams. Happening tomorrow April 20th-April 22nd!
Event link: https://www.teamusa.org/usparaswimming/competitions
Psych sheet: https://www.teamusa.org/usparaswimming/-/media/89C81D542A6F4F23A9E3A4A7BAC5AFCA.ashx
Speaking of the USA Swmming national team(s), the status of Hali Flickinger. Retirement? Sabbatical?
can you please leave these people alone
I would have thought the World Aquatics Championships, World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships, Pan American Games would suffice for calendar year 2023.
🇺🇸🥇💥🌎🏊🏼♂️🏊🏾♀️🏊🏾♂️🏊🏼♀️
I think I kind of understand how this will work:
Am I close? Anyone else think this will be hard to follow along at the meet?
Some smaller details will make it harder to follow after selection point 1, such as Age for selections 2 & 4 as well as relay selections based on 100 & 200 Free and roster limitations for each meet, but other than that it should be fairly straightforward – I hope.
Age eligible athletes could turn down Pan Ams to go to European 23U. Otherwise no turning down to take the next trip
My question is; Why do you have to have NCAA eligibility to go to this meet? It is called U23, not “university games”. There are plenty of former college swimmers who are 23 or under who could qualify
Could a high schooler attend, or is USA Swimming have it set in stone that it must be a current collegiate swimmer?
My question is: if you’re sending a group of 19-23 year old college students to a meet…why did you choose the European Championships and not World University Games?
If the answer is a matter of geography, I’d love for someone to say that out loud so we can all stop guessing and understand the policies better going forward.
I agree with you 1000 percent Braden- USA Swimming needs to do a much better job in communicating overall, and this is a perfect example of their poor communication skills.
Without searching and looking things up, I think I read somewhere (might actually been out of European news agencies) that the reason has to do with where it is located/hosted and maybe something with regards to political climate or action about 1-2 years ago when this decision was made.
The problem is that I am writing this based on memory and not based on support from printed material that I would have looked up at this time, so do not take this as an answer or fact.
They use WA (former FINA) definition of age so someone that is 23 is too old, so swimmers born in 2001 or later (https://staging2.swimswam.com/europe-will-roll-out-a-new-u23-swimming-championship-in-2023/).
I opened the document that describes the meet and even though they have it declared as an Under 23 Championship meet, they do allow 23-year-old swimmers. They should rename it to 23&U European Championships.