Olympic Trials Picks Day 2

Day 2 of the OT finals will bring us the following events-
Women’s 100 Fly, Men’s 100 Breaststroke, Women’s 400 Freestyle

Here are our picks for each….

Women’s 100 Fly

1-Dana Vollmer
2-Kelsi Worrell

Vollmer and Worrell seem to be the 2 most popular choices for qualifying in this event. Vollmer is the 2012 Olympic Gold medalist in this event, and since her return to the sport last year, she has had a very promising trend of time drops getting her closer and closer to her sub 56 speed. Meanwhile, Worrell is the NCAA champion in yards in this event, and has already been a 57.2 in meters. The reason we give Vollmer the edge is simply more international experience, and more training and racing experience in meters.

Men’s 100 Breaststroke

1- Kevin Cordes
2-Nic Fink

As one of the deepest events this trials, many people for whatever reason are not giving Cordes a shot in the 100. Last year at the 2015 World Championships Cordes showed he had changed his stroke by developing much more turnover, evident in his 50 Br (26.7 ) and the way he closed out his 200 Br (2:07.9). Over the past couple of seasons, he has been training with some of the top coaches in the sport (Sergio Lopez and Joszef Nagy), and making that transition from yards to meters. We would honestly be very surprised if he was not able to qualify in this event. As for the 2nd place spot, Nic Fink seems to have the highest upside out of the rest of the field, but we wouldn’t be surprised if someone else grabbed the slot.

Women’s 400 Freestyle

1) Katie Ledecky
2) Leah Smith

Ledecky is the obvious choice for 1st, so we’ll skip right to second…..the field isn’t very deep past 3rd place. Based on seed times and recent swims, it looks like Leah Smith and Cierra Runge will be battling for that 2nd qualifying spot. With Leah Smith coming off of a stellar NCAA season, and dropping a nice 4:03 in the 400 LCM in the Arena Pro Series earlier this month, we give her the edge.