USA Swimming to Send Eight to FINA Youth World Championships

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., July 28 USA Swimming will send a team of eight swimmers to compete in the first FINA Youth World Swimming Championships, Aug. 23-27 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Four boys and four girls will be selected based on their performances in Olympic events contested at the 2006 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships Aug 1-5 in Irvine, Calif.

To qualify for the Youth World Championship Team, swimmers must be 17 years of age or younger as of Dec. 31, 2006. The swimmers will be chosen based on world rankings. The four highest-ranked male and female athletes who meet the qualifying criteria will be named members of the FINA World Youth Championship Team. Only a swimmer’s highest-ranked event will be considered. To be eligible for the meet, swimmers must never have competed for the USA at a major international meet.

Events contested at the FINA Youth World Swimming Championships will include the 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500-meter freestyle; the 200-and 400-meter individual medley; and the backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly events in the 50, 100 and 200-meter distances. The freestyle relay will be swum in the 4×100 and 4×200-meter distances and the medley relay will be swum in the 4×100-meter distance.

Richard Shoulberg will serve as head coach of the team while Sean Hutchison will serve as his assistant. Shoulberg is currently the head coach and aquatics director at Germantown (Pa.) Academy. He served as an assistant coach for the 1992 Olympic Team and was an advisory coach for both the 1988 and 2000 Olympic squads. In addition, Shoulberg has coached the U.S. National Team at numerous international competitions, including the World and Pan Pacific Championships and the Pan American and Goodwill Games.

Hutchison has been the head coach at King Aquatics in Seattle, Wash., since 2002 where he has coached national team members Megan Jendrick, Kristen Caverly and Ariana Kukors. In 2005, Hutchison led King Aquatics to its best finish ever at the National Championships. Behind Kukors’ national titles in the 200 and 400 meter IM, the team took fifth place at the meet and Hutchison was named the George Haines Award Winner (Coach of the Meet) for the second straight year.

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