US Olympic swim trials split into 2 meets because of COVID

USA Swimming wanted to make its Olympic trials as safe as possible during a pandemic while providing a valuable experience to the next generation of stars.

The solution?

Two meets.

The U. S. Olympic swimming trials will be split into a pair of meets, the governing body announced Tuesday — a striking change designed to provide more room for social distancing on the usually crowded pool deck,

The Wave I meet of lower-ranked swimmers will be held on June 4-7 in Omaha, Nebraska. The top finishers will advance to the main Wave II meet on June 13-20 — the already scheduled dates for the trials — to determine who represents the U.S at the Tokyo Games.

Both meets will take place in a temporary pool set up inside the CHI Health Center arena, which is hosting the trials for the fourth straight time going back to 2008.

Mike Unger, USA Swimming’s chief operating officer, said a test meet was scheduled in Omaha for June 4- 5, which cleared the way for the change in format.

“We already had that event on the books,” he told The Associated Press. “Someone suggested we take the test event but don’t call it a test event. Call it the trials.”

The change is designed to reduce overcrowding on the pool deck, two adjacent warmup pools, and the athlete seating areas. The top 41 seeded swimmers in each event will automatically qualify for Wave II, which ensures that top swimmers such as Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel are assured of a spot.

All others will have to swim their way in.

“We wanted to have enough people at the meet to keep the environment, keep the atmosphere, but also maintain things from a health and safety standpoint,” Unger said.

As of last week, 1,305 athletes had qualified for the Olympic trials since the window opened Nov. 28, 2018.

The meet, initially set for last summer, was delayed a year after the Tokyo Olympics were postponed because of the pandemic, which has claimed more than 400,000 American lives and more than 2 million victims around the world.

Instead of limiting the trials to only the top-seeded swimmers, the governing body preferred a format that provided valuable experience to those who may be contenders in future years.

Unger noted that many top U.S. swimmers — including Ryan Murphy and Missy Franklin — didn’t qualify for the Olympic team at their first trials.

“Maybe for 2024 or even 2028, these trials will provide the sort of learning experience that so many of our athletes had before actually making the Olympic team,” Unger said.