Women’s 100 Meter Backstroke
- Day 4, Saturday, August 9th
- Defending National Champ: Missy Franklin, 58.67
- Defending U.S. Open Champ: Sarah Denninghoff 1:00.04
- Time to make 2013 U.S. National Team: 1:00.38 – Olivia Smoliga
Since at least 2011, this event has been all but owned by Missy Franklin. Despite a great crop of swimmers behind her, Franklin has taken national titles every season since, including a win at the Olympic Trials in 2012, Olympic gold and the 2013 long course World Championship. To say she’s the favorite here would be an understatement. The only question is her event focus. After a college season where Cal asked her to swim mainly mid-distance freestyle, there’s no guarantee her backstroke is still as suffocatingly dominant as it’s been the past three years. Still, if there’s a cardinal rule in swimming right now, it might go something like ‘Never bet against Missy Franklin in a backstroke race’.
Franklin leads in a really strong group from Cal, with the potential to sweep the top three or more spots here. In fact, former or future Cal swimmers swept the top 3 backstroke spots at the 2012 Olympic Trials (Franklin, Rachel Bootsma and Natalie Coughlin), and Golden Bears also went 1-2-3-4 at Winter Nationals, albeit in short course.
Elizabeth Pelton was the second-fastest American backstroker last year, and took second behind Franklin at nationals. Pelton also holds the fastest 100 back time in the nation so far this year, just a tenth ahead of her training partner Franklin. Then there’s Bootsma, a 2012 Olympian and the American record-holder in the 50 back. Bootsma’s clearly got the talent to win this event, but she’s still a bit of an enigma, coming off a roundly disappointing college season where she failed to even make the A final in trying to defend her NCAA title.
Much of this field is made up of talented youngsters on their way up. In all likelihood, one or more of this group will take a huge step forward this summer – the trouble is predicting who exactly will do it. Olivia Smoliga made the U.S. National team last summer in the 100 back, taking 5th at Nationals. She’ll shoot to crack the minute barrier for the first time since her breakout freshman NCAA season that culminated with a team title at Georgia and an individual title in the 50 free.
SwimMAC’s Kathleen Baker is one of the nation’s best rising high school seniors, and is the beneficiary of some great training partners – Baker gets to practice and compete alongside SwimMAC’s high-calibur group of pros, and has certainly absorbed much of their poise in high-pressure situations. Baker was a finalist last summer and even a semi-finalist at the 2012 Olympic Trials at the age of 15.
Some more young swimmers to watch: incoming Georgia freshman Kylie Stewart, future Michigan Wolverine Clara Smiddy and Stanford signees Ally Howe and Janet Hu. On the younger end of things is Carmel High School star Amy Bilquist, who had a great meet at the Santa Clara Grand Prix last month. Smiddy would probably be in our top 8, except that she’s already committed to swim at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. That means she should have her taper focused a few weeks beyond Nationals.
Michigan’s Ali DeLoof is an intriguing prospect. She’s put up the third-fastest American time this season behind Franklin and Pelton. The question (as it always seems to be with Michigan) is how well she’ll taper from there, but over the past few years, the Wolverines have showed up in postseason competition more often than not.
Speaking of crunch-time performers, Megan Romano is a returning national teamer in this event, and though the field is awfully stacked, it’s hard to count her out, considering she’s one of a select group in this event to have broken a minute.
Another national teamer is Longhorn’s Sarah Denninghoff, though she’s had a very limited competition schedule since last summer’s US Open championship. Dealing with a hip injury much of the year, she’s only swum one 100 meter backstroke in the past 11 months. It’s unclear if she’ll even enter nationals or not, but if she does, consider her an intriguing wild card to keep an eye on.
Cal also enters Melanie Klaren and Cindy Tran as part of its backstroking gauntlet. Bay Area rival Stanford counters with Felicia Lee, while fellow Pac-12 power USC has Kendyl Stewart and Arizona offers Bonnie Brandon, more of a 200 backstroker but still very dangerous here.
Lee won the B-Final in this event at last year’s World Championship Trials, which kickstarted a little bit of a career resurgence and continued into a fantastic NCAA season. If she B-Finaled last year, despite nobody really “dropping off the map” from last year’s A-final, we think she can have a better prelims swim and make the push into the top 8.
My picks (swimmer, team, lifetime best, year of lifetime best):
1. Missy Franklin (Cal Aquatics) – 58.33/2012
2. Elizabeth Pelton (Cal Aquatics) – 59.27/2013
3. Olivia Smoliga (Athens Bulldog Swim Club) – 59.82/2012
4. Kathleen Baker (SwimMAC) – 1:00.62/2013
5. Megan Romano (Athens Bulldog Swim Club) – 59.85/2013
6. Rachel Bootsma (Cal Aquatics) – 59.10/2012
7. Felicia Lee (Stanford) – 1:00.81/2013
8. Kylie Stewart (Dynamo) – 1:00.86/2012
Note: Athletes are listed under the college/club with whom, to the best of our knowledge, they’re currently training.
Missy Franklin is a lot like Michael Phelps in the fact that she just rarely has major off meets. Sure, she doesn’t literally win every event…but you will most likely see her on the podium in all her chosen events.
Think about how rare that is…so many talented swimmers have one or two breakout meets and never duplicate that success again.
A usual strong event in USA but this year many questions.
1. I pick Missy because she has a margin in USA and simply because she’s the backstroke queen. But the question is: after a college season focused on freestyle, is she still as dominant as usual on backstroke? We’ll have the answer after the Pan Pacs and especially her 100 back race against Emily Seebohm. I’m a big Missy fan but I must say that her backstroke races have been bad since Barcelona. She goes to Cal to train with a great backstroke coach and great backstroke training partners. I have the hope to see her finally improve her starts, turns and underwaters there with the 10 back world… Read more »
Coughlin has always shied away from stroke 50s… even in her prime they weren’t at the top of her priority list.
A little disappointed the title wasn’t “A Golden Bear Affair”.
Natalie Coughlin has never tried to chase after too many events. It’s sometimes disappointing for those of us who want to see her versatility shine, but she alone owns her event schedule. I think she will most likely stick to the 50/100 free at nationals, but consider the schedule:
Day 1 – 100 free
Day 2 – 50 fly
Day 3 – 100 fly, 50 back
Day 4 – 100 back
Day 5 – 50 free
It’s hard to say she’d have anything to lose by swimming an event or two in the middle of the meet. These days she’s probably more competitive in the fly, but a 50 back could also be worth a shot.
4 years ago, I’d agree with your assessment. I’m sure she would too…but right now at almost 32 years old, I’m pretty sure she’s content with her accomplishments and cognizant about her work/recovery level. I think she swam the schedule that you suggest in the 1998 Champs – 16 years ago.
Didn’t mean to say she would swim ALL those events. Just suggesting she could add one or two of them to her schedule.
This could be one of the upset events of the meet. I just have a feeling.
Would it be a so big upset unfortunately?