By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
World Aquatics has settled on a brand new and altered qualifying system for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Video games that may incorporate six new 50 meter stroke races for the primary time. Whereas the official doc that features time requirements received’t be launched till after the IOC rubber-stamps the process at its assembly later this week, World Aquatics previewed the process with choose members of the media final week, together with a radically-different course of for deciding who will get to race the stroke 50s.
New Occasions for LA:
Males’s & Girls’s 50 again
Males’s & Girls’s 50 breast
Males’s & Girls’s 50 fly
Quotas
The quotas wouldn’t usually be the lead angle on a qualification system, however for swimming the subject was pervasive all through the dialog.
Swimming had 900 athletes in Rio, 878 in Tokyo, and 852 in Paris. The quantity has been lowered to 830 for the Los Angeles Olympic Video games, which has pressured AQUA to suit a “greater foot…in the identical dimension shoe” with the addition of six new occasions.
The discount in swimming was not a discount throughout aquatic sports activities, relatively the aquatic sports activities cap remained the identical with spots shifted to girls’s water polo, the place two extra groups shall be added to convey the ladies’s discipline as much as 12 groups and match the boys’s.
AQUA is anticipating round 194 Nationwide Olympic Committees to take part in swimming within the Los Angeles Olympic Video games, which is a rise from the 189 in 2024. They’re additionally anticipating extra international locations to ship each a female and male swimmer. Which means 10-or extra further spots going to Universality swimmers when in comparison with Paris.
Universality is a program the place international locations with out certified athletes can ship 1 male and 1 feminine swimmer to compete within the Video games.
This pressured World Aquatics to get artistic in the right way to keep their rules of Universality, which they view as a basic a part of their mission, with out lowering the aggressive nature of the meet.
When requested concerning the stability and dangers of lowering swimmers with “A” or “B” requirements whereas additionally anticipating extra international locations to take part within the Universality program, AQUA CEO Brent Nowicki made it clear that AQUA is pushing to reverse the development of shrinking the swimming discipline on the Olympics.
“The combat’s ours. It’s our combat to take and win. We want extra quota, that’s it. 40% of our funds goes into improvement…That’s some huge cash that we’re pushing to develop the game. We’ve seen in Paris and even in juniors an ideal diversification of medals,” Nowicki stated.
“We need to keep away from these left discipline surprises. We don’t need to lose out on actually good swimmers who’ve actually nice races. That’s the place we’re proper now. We threat having actually nice swimmers miss medals.”
He indicated that AQUA was dropping spots resulting from an inflow of latest staff sports activities like cricket on the Los Angeles Olympics, and that it was a continuing dialog about the right way to develop spots for swimming in Brisbane.
“Once we checked out time requirements, we’ve a definite…we don’t need to lose athletes that may make the ultimate or semifinal even. That’s an enormous issue for us, so there’s a stability. It’s essential for us, it’s essential for the IOC, that we’ve as many international locations taking part as potential,” Chief Sport Officer Mike Unger added.
With occasions like the ladies’s 200 fly in latest main world meets barely having sufficient entries to fill the semi-finals, stiffening of requirements makes it really feel nearly inevitable that there shall be an empty semi-final lane in Los Angeles.
Setting Time Requirements
Whereas World Aquatics didn’t launch the precise time requirements, they stated that they’ve tweaked the best way they’re being set.
Prior to now, “A” time requirements had been set on the 14th or sixteenth place finisher from the earlier Olympics. For Los Angeles, they are going to be set primarily based on the 14th-ranked entry time from the Paris Olympics.
Unger identified that the 14th-ranked entry time is nearly at all times sooner than the 14th place outcome (which shall be very true for Paris, the place occasions had been notoriously sluggish).
Unger stated that received’t be strict – there have been some tweaks off these 14th place entry occasions – however that it might be roughly that.
Males
Occasion
Olympic Qualifying Time (Males)
50 free
21.96
21.72
100 free
48.34
47.86
200 free
1:46.26
1:45.83
400 free
3:46.78
3:45.46
800 free
7:51.65
7:46.55
1500 free
15:00.99
14:51.62
100 again
53.74
53.08
200 again
1:57.50
1:56.05
100 breast
59.49
59.27
200 breast
2:09.68
2:09.35
100 fly
51.67
51.14
200 fly
1:55.78
1:54.69
200 IM
1:57.94
1:57.54
400 IM
4:12.50
4:11.78
Girls
Occasion
Olympic Qualifying Time (Girls)
50 free
24.7
24.56
100 free
53.61
53.6
200 free
1:57.26
1:57.18
400 free
4:07.90
4:06.20
800 free
8:26.71
8:34.01
1500 free
16:09.09
16:08.65
100 again
59.99
59.65
200 again
2:10.39
2:08.89
100 breast
1:06.79
1:06.10
200 breast
2:23.91
2:23.49
100 fly
57.92
57.32
200 fly
2:08.43
2:08.15
200 IM
2:11.47
2:10.24
400 IM
4:38.53
4:37.35
The brand new minimal time requirements for the stroke 50s shall be primarily based on prelims of the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka. Of be aware, these stroke 50s could have solely ‘minimal time requirements,’ as a result of their fields shall be chosen in a different way than the opposite occasions.
“B” requirements shall be about 1% slower than the “A” commonplace.
Stroke 50 Picks
Rosters will stay at a restrict of 26 per gender for the Los Angeles Olympic Video games, which means giant international locations (largely america, although China could also be approaching the brink as properly) should discover methods so as to add stroke 50s to their rosters with out including athletes.
The first alternatives for stroke 50s shall be carried out on the earlier 12 months’s World Cup. This may ‘lengthen the Olympic window’ for swimming in a way to align it with different sports activities, which historically start constructing towards the Video games themselves with qualification occasions which can be a lot additional prematurely.
World Aquatics is planning a 3 cease 2027 World Cup in Europe, hoping to host the entire occasions in former Olympic cities. At every of these three stops, a distinct stroke 50 occasion would function a qualification.
Prelims of that race would happen on day 1, chopping the sector to 32. Within the day 1 night session, the sector can be minimize to 16, within the day 2 night session, the sector can be minimize to eight, and within the day 3 night session, the highest 6 would earn qualification spots in these stroke 50s for the Olympic Video games.
Nowicki added that this was a “first step to change format” of main swim meets sooner or later.
These high 6 should not true ‘direct qualification’ spots although, as they’re nonetheless topic to the interior qualification guidelines of their Nationwide Olympic Committees – which aren’t required to just accept them. That shall be essential, once more, for the People, who should work out the right way to stability 26 roster spots with 3 new occasions for every gender.
Every nation will solely be capable to have 2 swimmers within the ultimate of these occasions on the World Cup.
The remainder of the fields within the stroke 50s shall be crammed by athletes already entered in different occasions (extra on that later). This ensures {that a} most of 36 “new athlete” spots will go to stroke 50s.
Relays Diminished
Traditionally, the highest 16 relays from qualification meets have routinely certified for the Olympic Video games. That quantity is being lowered to 12 for the Los Angeles 2028 Video games.
The tradeoff is that international locations with 4 certified males or 4 certified girls or 2 males and a couple of girls will be capable to enter relays the place their nation was not within the high 12 rating.
World Aquatics says they anticipate there to in the end be greater than 16 entries in every relay
There can even be a big discount within the variety of relay-only swimmers that international locations shall be allowed to have. Traditionally, international locations that enter 6 or 7 relays had been allowed to convey as much as 12 relay-only swimmers. Below the brand new system, these international locations shall be allowed solely 8 relay-only swimmers, with fewer numbers for international locations with fewer athletes.
1 Relay certified 2 further athletes
2 Relays 3 further athletes
3 Relays 5 further athletes
4 Relays 6 further athletes
5 Relays 7 further athletes
6 or 7 Relay 8 further athletes
That is prone to shift how some international locations, like Nice Britain, which have traditionally declined relay spots in certified occasions will strategy these entries. Now, they might be incentivized to swim the relay (even when not with effort) in heats in an effort to get these further relay-only swimmers.
This might drive some international locations to re-evaluate how they choose their relay-only swimmers, although it’s going to influence completely different international locations in numerous methods. The US, for instance, solely took 7 relay-only swimmers to the Paris Video games:
Ryan Held
Matt King
Brooks Curry
Drew Kibler
Blake Pieroni
Erika Connolly
Abbey Weitzeil
Taking extra relay swimmers, although, might be advantageous for some international locations, due to one other change.
Limitless Entries for Every Athlete
Dovetailing with the above, with the brand new programs targeted largely on ‘athlete numbers,’ as soon as an athlete is within the meet, they can swim as many occasions as they need, presuming they’ve a “B” commonplace in that occasion and that they don’t exceed their nation’s 2-per-event restrict.
Mike Unger, an American who swam collegiately at Wisconsin and was previously the #2 govt at USA Swimming, made comparisons to the previous NCAA qualifying programs that allowed an analogous limitless entries for certified swimmers.
Crucially, these secondary entries are exempt from time requirements.
An instance from Mike Unger: an NOC has one swimmer within the males’s 400 free with an An ordinary.
In addition they have an invited B swimmer within the 400 IM.
Can the B 400 IM swimmer additionally swim the 400 Free (supplied the NOC has not exceeded the two athletes within the 400 free)?
With the B minimize within the 400 free? Sure
With out the B minimize within the 400 free? Reply remains to be sure.
That is related for successfully each nation, together with the powerhouse People, who lacked a second entry within the males’s 800 free final 12 months as a result of they didn’t have a second swimmer with an “A” commonplace within the occasion through the qualifying interval. Below the brand new guidelines, they might have used a swimmer like David Johnston, who swam the 1500 free, in the event that they selected to.
These bonus occasions is not going to apply to Universality athletes with out time requirements, however will apply to each particular person and relay opponents. Universality athletes with a “B” minimize (however who should not invited) will be capable to swim 1 further occasion, no matter commonplace in that further occasion.
Schedule
Whereas AQUA stated that this launch of data wouldn’t embody the schedule, which nonetheless has some work to do, there have been a number of key revelations.
The Budapest 2027 World Championships will mirror the Olympic schedule, which means 9 days of swimming. That’s new, because the World Championship schedule has traditionally completely different fairly considerably. AQUA could have the power to perhaps shift occasions round inside a day after seeing the schedule play out in Budapest, although they aren’t anticipating to make substantial adjustments.
The schedule will change fairly considerably relatively than simply dropping stroke 50s into the present framework.
They talked about how the sense of what’s and isn’t a double has modified. One instance given was that the boys’s 50 and 100 free had no overlapping finalists in Paris, making a paradox about whether or not that’s nonetheless an ‘apparent double.’
The entries or anticipated entries of high athletes are thought-about when making schedules, although Technical Swimming Committee chair Craig Hunter emphasised that it was “for the good thing about the game as a complete” relatively than any particular athlete. This got here into focus when the schedule was modified in Paris to accommodate the host nation’s star athlete Leon Marchand.
Odds and Ends
World Aquatics will transfer to “A” and “B” commonplace nomenclature, eliminating the beforehand complicated “Olympic Qualifying Time” and “Olympic Consideration Time” nomenclature.
Eliminating semifinals of 200 strokes has been mentioned however by no means critically thought-about, citing a variety of causes together with broadcaster preferences and the power to unfold out overlapping occasions in finals classes.
Traditionally, athletes from the Refugee Staff, which AQUA has no management over, haven’t counted in opposition to the quota. In Los Angeles, they may, however AQUA is pushing again on that. Whereas that’s often solely 2-3 athletes, AQUA says that each spot counts, as a result of these will doubtless remove athletes with “B” cuts and the power to make a semifinal or a ultimate from the meet.
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