USA Swimming SwimSquad Lineups Announced; L. Smith Not Starting

2018 PRO SWIM SERIES – AUSTIN

• Thursday, January 11 – Sunday, January 14, 2018
• Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center
• Austin, TX
• Prelims 9 AM (Th-Sat) / Finals 6 PM (Th), 5:40 (Fri-Sat) / Timed Finals 8 AM (Sun) – U.S. Central Time
• Links, Schedule & Points/Money Info
• Meet site
• Live Stream
• Meet info
• Psych Sheets

USA Swimming tweeted out the four starting SwimSquad rosters during this morning’s prelims sessions, with a couple of key changes from our predictions earlier this week.

Update: We’ve also received clarification that each captain had to select each swimmer’s two scoring events in advance. So an athlete can only score in the two selected events, even if he or she performs better in a different eligible race.

We had projected Mallory Comerford as a starter for Team Lezak, but she was a late scratch from the heat sheets – something Lezak prepared for by using Justin Ress as a flex instead. Another key change was on Team Sandeno, where first-round pick Leah Smith is not starting. That might suggest that Smith, too, isn’t competing in Austin – something we should find out later this morning if Smith no-shows the 200 free, where she’s seeded first. Sandeno is starting Michael Andrew in the flex spot instead.

Team Krayzelburg’s lineup is as expected, with the only change being that Olivia Smoliga is starting at backstroke and Matt Grevers in flex. We projected the other way around.

Team Coughlin was right-on with our projections outside of starting Hali Flickinger at fly instead of Tom Shields. That’s looking like a genius move for Natalie Coughlin after Shields struggled mightily in his prelims 100 fly. In fact, Flickinger was faster (1:00.18) in the women’s 100 fly than Shields was in the men’s (1:00.62).

Outside of the Smith-Andrew swap at flex, Team Sandeno also elected to use Katie Meili at breaststroke instead of Andrew Wilson, as we’d predicted.

We’ll be following the SwimSquad scores as the meet goes along – stay tuned to SwimSwam.com for updated scoring and more.