First let me start off by saying last night was AWESOME! The Men’s 200 Breaststroke was possibly the most exciting race of the trials, and some of the other races (Men’s 100 Free) also lived up to the hype. Hopefully tonight will have a couple of more good races, with a few surprises sprinkled in. Let’s get things started….
Women’s 200 Breaststroke
1-Lily King
2-Micah Lawrence
Lily King has been lights out so far in trials. Even though Micah has a faster ‘best time’, she (Micah) didn’t swim great in the 100, and even missed finals in the event. We are absolutely in love with King’s tempo in LC, and we think she will be able to change gears the final 50 more so the Micah to win (Josh Prenot vs Kevin Cordes, anyone?).
Men’s 200 Backstroke
1-Ryan Murphy
2-Jacob Pebley
After trials, we are going to do a bit of research and post about which teams at the trials have been dominant, which have underwhelmed, and what information about the these trends and statistics with regards to training we can uncover. That being said, the Cal Aquatics Men have been lighting Omaha up! Nathan Adrian, Josh Prenot, and Ryan Murphy to name a few have already made the team, and are swimming fast. Pebley is another Cal swimmer who has a great shot of making the team after his semis swim last night. We think he will have the edge over Tyler Clary for that 2nd place spot.
Men’s 200 IM
1-Ryan Lochte
2-Michael Phelps
We actually think Phelps will win this one, but we’re pulling for Lochte. After a rough trials thus far, we’d like to see Lochte, who is currently the world record holder in this event, shine a bit and get a confidence boost going into the games.
Women 100 Fr
1-Simone Manuel
2-Katie Ledecky
Another very close race among the top 8 qualifiers, and we just HAD to throw Ledecky in there for fun. Word is she’s been training a bit faster over the past year, not only improving her sprint speed, but also making her even more anaerobically fit….being the racer that she is, we’d love to see her throw down a monster 100 Fr. That being said Simone has great front end speed, and probably has the edge in a 100. Look for Abbey Weitzel to be leading the pack as well with her aggressive front end speed as well.