The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are barely a month and a half away — and which means athletes throughout the world are honing their preparations for the upcoming spectacle.
No squad in Australia has extra eyeballs on it at this stage of the Olympic cycle than the swimming group.
The Dolphins are by far Australia’s most profitable cohort at the Olympics.
This week in Brisbane, the nation’s prime swimmers will have an opportunity to shoot for Paris over six days of intense competitors.
Australia’s beautiful Olympic file
Australia’s file in swimming is sensational — it is the sport in which Australia has gained the most medals by far
All time, the Aussies are second in phrases of medals gained, behind solely the United States.
At the final Games, it was once more the USA at the prime of the pile with a complete of 30 medals, together with 11 golds.
Australia was not far behind although, successful 9 golds and a complete of 21 medals.
No different nation reached double figures, with Great Britain the subsequent most profitable nation with eight medals in whole.
That success was nearly solely down to the all-conquering girls’s squad, who claimed a whopping eight gold medals out of a attainable 17 in the pool.
In whole, Australia’s girls gained 17 of the 51 medals on supply in the pool — and given every nation is proscribed to two athletes per occasion, that was over half the most they may conceivably have gained.
All up, 10 of Australia’s 11 most profitable Summer Olympians are swimmers.
Indeed, at the final Games, Emma McKeon was the most profitable athlete in phrases of medals gained throughout the board, successful seven medals in whole (4 golds and three bronzes).
That was the first time a feminine swimmer had ever been the prime medallist at a single Games, and the first time a feminine athlete had accomplished so since Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina gained six medals at the 1964 Games in Tokyo.
How do the Olympic swimming trials work?
It’s all fairly simple.
Swimmers race in their heats in the morning, with the eight quickest swimming once more in that night’s last.
Australia has a most quota of athletes to select from, which is 26 males and 26 girls.
The prime two swimmers in the last will make the Olympic group — so long as they swim beneath the qualifying normal set by Swimming Australia.
If no athletes swim beneath the qualification time, they will not be chosen even when they end in the prime two positions.
That time is definitely sooner than the official Olympic qualification time in all however a handful of situations — the 100m breaststroke and 400m particular person medley (IM) for males, and the 100m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, and the 400m IM for girls.
Selection for the relay groups will be topic to an athlete making the last of the occasion.
Who are Australia’s prime names to look out for?
All 4 of Australia’s particular person Olympic champions from Tokyo will be in motion in Brisbane.
Australia’s solely male particular person gold medallist from Tokyo, Zac Stubblety-Cook in the 200m breaststroke, has entered each the 100m and 200m breaststroke in his residence pool — occasions he gained at April’s Australian Swimming Championships on the Gold Coast.
Ariarne Titmus will compete in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m.
Australia’s golden lady is favorite in the two longer occasions, however comes up in opposition to world file holder Mollie O’Callaghan in the 200m and, nicely, nearly each one of Australia’s best trendy 100m sprinters in the two-length effort — however extra on that later.
Backstroke queen Kaylee McKeown can be protecting busy this week, swimming the 200m IM, the 100m and 200m again and the 100m and 200m free.
Emma McKeon is sticking to three occasions, racing the 100m fly, 100m and 50m free — all occasions she gained particular person medals in at the Tokyo Games.
Outside these stars, look out for Cameron McEvoy, whose much less is extra method to sprinting has seen the veteran file the two quickest instances in the world this yr over 50m.
Kyle Chalmers‘s 47.63 over 100m free to win the Australian Championships in April was the sixth-fastest time in the world this yr and a really optimistic signal, though Flynn Southam leads a robust contingent of swimmers hoping to upset the established order.
In the 400m, each Elijah Winnington and Sam Short have gone manner beneath the Swimming Australia qualifying time already this yr, with each males trying good to hit the 800m qualifying time as nicely.
Winnington must also be there or thereabouts in a really competitive-looking 200m free, with Max Giuliani, Zac Incerti and Kai Taylor all posting spectacular instances.
The girls’s 100m freestyle
The power in depth of Australian girls’s swimming has arguably by no means been extra spectacular.
And nowhere is that extra clear than in the 100m, which consists of one of the greatest home fields ever assembled.
Eight of the girls down to swim in the 100m free have an Olympic gold medal to their title.
Six girls — O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon, Meg Harris, Cate Campbell and Bronte Campbell — have entered a time that’s under Swimming Australia’s qualification mark of 53:61.
An additional three entered a time of sub-54 seconds to arrange an explosive battle for a spot in the relay group, not to mention one of the two particular person spots, together with reigning world junior champion, Olivia Wunsch, Brianna Throssell and Titmus.
The 50m freestyle is simply as full of expertise, that means there’s a very real looking probability that this may very well be the final time we see the Campbell sisters in motion.
Seven girls have entered instances under the Swimming Australia qualifying normal for the Games in the one-length dash — together with each Campbell sisters.
When are the USA trials?
Australia will be taught the identification of its American challengers the week after the trials in Brisbane conclude.
The Olympic trials are type of an enormous deal Stateside.
So vital that the competitors will happen inside the residence of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.
The 70,000-seat venue has been reconfigured to host 30,000 supporters at a price of greater than 1,000,000 {dollars}.
“The last five Olympic Trials were in temporary pools,” chief business officer of USA Swimming, Shana Ferguson informed the Indy Star.
“The reason for that is there’s simply no natatorium in the United States that is big enough to host a meet of this magnitude.”
Eyes will principally be on Katie Ledecky, who will be aiming, primarily, to win a fourth-straight title in the 800m freestyle, having additionally gained the crown in London, Rio and Tokyo.
How are the different medal favourites faring?
Canada held its Olympic trials final month, and predictably Summer McIntosh stole the present.
The 17-year-old certified for 5 particular person occasions, together with the occasions in which she presently reigns in as two-time world champion — the 400m IM and 200m butterfly — and the 400m freestyle.
Maggie Mac Neil, who beat McKeon in the 100m butterfly in Tokyo, certified for her probability to repeat the triumph.
Great Britain’s Olympic trials happened in April with Matt Richards successful the 200m freestyle forward of gold and silver medallists from Tokyo, Duncan Scott and Tom Dean.
Dean, the defending champion, will now possible solely compete in the 4x200m relay, which Britain will hope to defend its title in utilizing the similar 4 swimmers that gained gold in Tokyo, Richards, Scott, Dean and James Guy, who completed fourth in the greatest race of the trials.
Two-time defending champion and 100m breaststroke world file holder Adam Peaty additionally locked in his spot after a tough couple of years that noticed him stunningly give up his 100m breast Commonwealth Games title and revealed that he was struggling together with his psychological well being.
China additionally threatens to be a robust challenger, with Pan Zhanle successful a 100m, 200m and 400m hat-trick at their trials in Shenzhen in April.
Breaststroker Qin Haiyang additionally starred, as did girls’s defending Olympic 200m butterfly champion Zhang Yufei, whereas the emergence of 20-year-old breaststroker Tang Qianting additionally brings the promise of success in the 100m.
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