College of Virginia sophomore Kate Douglass, one of the foremost flexible women’s collegiate swimmers in a era, will swim the 50 free, 100 fly, and 100 free exclusively at the NCAA Championship meet.
See the pre-selection psych sheets here.
This implies, among other races, she’s skipping out on the 200 IM and the 200 breaststroke.
Douglass finished the normal season as the NCAA’s top-ranked swimmer in 4 races:
the 50 free, 100 free, 200 IM, and 200 breaststroke. She is the #2 positioned swimmer within the 100 fly, in spite of the fact that in that race she was behind the quickest to ever swim the occasion Maggie MacNeil.
By picking for the sprint freestyles, she does grant the Cavaliers additional swims in races where they are something else lean. Their next-best swimmer within the 50 and 100 free is Lexi Cuomo, who is seeded 15th within the 50 free and 22nd in 48.52.
That’s as compared to the 200 IM, where without Douglass, first year recruit Alex Walsh is the beat seed, and the 200 breaststroke where without Douglass, Ella Nelson is the #5 seed in 2:
05.91.
In reality, in each of those races, Virginia has multiple swimmers still seeded to score. Within the 200 breaststroke, Walsh is seeded 8th in 2:
06.72, whereas Anna Keating is seeded 14th in 2:
07.26. Alexis Wenger, best known as a sprinter, is seeded 19th in 2:
07.79, fair exterior of the 16 projected scorers.
Within the 200 IM, without Douglass, Ella Nelson is seeded 7th in 1:
54.72 and Abby Harter is seeded 16th in 1:
56.22.
On paper, Virginia’s as it were genuine challenge is to “swim well,” since in the event that they do, and dodge preclusions, they’ll win the meet. That being said, with swimmers like Izzy Ivey and Maggie MacNeil prowling, the 100 free looks a small murkier than the 200 breast, where indeed a mid-season time would have Douglass as the best seed by nearly a moment.
This makes for a very-different section set than what Douglass was set to swim at final year’s NCAA Championships before they were canceled. There she was entered within the 200 IM, 100 fly, and 200 breast independently, with as it were the 200 IM as a beat seed. At the ACC Championships in February of this year, she swam the 200 IM, 100 fly, and 100 free, winning each aside from the 200 IM, where Walsh beat her.
As for Walsh, another flexible swimmer, her 3rd passage within the meet may be a bit of a surprise:
the 200 free.
That’s as compared to the 100 breaststroke that she swam instep on the third day of the ACC Championships.
The 200 IM was a given for her as the best seed, but Walsh has moreover made a swap for her day 4 occasion:
she swam the 200 back at the ACC Championships, but the 200 backstroke will be her NCAA Championship event.
She would have been the 8th seed within the 100 breaststroke but instep picked for the 200 free, where her season-best of 1:
45.79 makes her the 29th seed.
We know Walsh’s potential is superior than that, in spite of the fact that. She part 1:
43.19 on a rolling-start on an 800 free transfer at ACCs. That puts her some place around a top-8 or top-9 spot in that occasion in the event that we extrapolate for the distinction in begins.
Like Douglass, Walsh had a part of options. Afterall, she’s a part of the USA Swimming National Group within the 200 backstroke, indeed in spite of the fact that she’s centering on the 200 breast at NCAAs.
Virginia has the best seed within the 200 free Paige Madden and the #12 seed Kyla Valls. That race isn’t one with a field as great as it’s been within the past. For case, in 2019 there were three swimmers seeded with 1:
41s, but Infuriate, the best seed, is 1:
42.39 this season.
