2019 Phillips 66 USA Swimming Nationals: Day One Finals Start Lists: Tom Shields Scratches 200 Fly to Fly to Pan American Games

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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The first day of finals from the 2019 Phillips 66 USA Swimming National Championships will feature six events with the 200 fly, 100 free, women’s 800 free and men’s 1500 free set to happen on Wednesday night in Palo Alto, California. Heat sheets for tonight’s session can be viewed at the link below. Finals will begin at 8:00 p.m. Eastern standard time and can be viewed at nbcsports.com.

HEAT SHEETS

The only major scratch for tonight was 2016 Olympian Tom Shields, who pulled out of the 200 fly final where he was the second seed behind teenage sensation Gianluca Urlando. There was no major cause of concern for Shields, who simply stated he scratched so he could fly to the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. The swimming portion of the Games will start August 6 and Shields presumably wanted to get a tune-up swim at Nationals before then.

Great little swim this morning. So fun to see everyone. Sorry if you were excited for tonight’s potential race with me in it—I was wanting to swim it very badly—but I scratched, by my coaches’ wise counsel. Flying out to pan ams in the morning with @TeamUSA #lesgo https://t.co/sW6PBybitk

— Tom Shields (@beefyTshields) July 31, 2019

A couple other Olympians will be swimming finals tonight with Abbey Weitzeil and Ryan Held leading the field in the 100 free tonight. Held swam the third fastest time in the world this morning and also broke the US Open record that was held by Jason Lezak.

New world record holder Regan Smith will be the top seed in the 200 fly as she will be on the lookout for some more fast times after having an incredible short week in Gwangju last week.

The women’s 800 and men’s 1500 timed finals will also be held tonight with Haley Anderson and Zane Grothe returning from Gwangju to swim tonight. Notably, World University Games gold medalist Kaersten Meitz pulled out of the meet due to appendicitis and will not be swimming the 800 tonight.

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