Winter Junior Championships: Bella Sims, Katie Grimes, Justina Kozan to Face Off (Psych Sheets)
The 2021 USA Swimming Speedo Winter Junior Championships been this week and are split up into two meets.
Greensboro Aquatic Center will host the East meet and the Jamail Texas Swim Center in Austin will host the West. Both meets will be scored separately and geography determines which teams will compete in East and West.
The biggest names will be two junior swimmers who made the Tokyo Olympic team earlier this year. Freestylers Bella Sims and Katie Grimes will compete in the West meet from the Sandpipers, based in Las Vegas. They have another up-and-coming star in Claire Weinstein. In the 500 free, Sims has the top seed with Grimes second, Paige Kuwata fourth and Weinstein fifth. Grimes and Sims have the top two seeds in the 200 IM.
Also in the West, Justina Kozan will have the top seed in the 400 IM ahead of Grimes and Sims. The trio of elite swimmers will have several showdowns in the Winter Junior Championships if they swim all of the events in which they are entered.
Meanwhile, Thomas Heilman, who set six 13-14 National Age Group records last week at the US Open and will look to keep the momentum going at the Winter Junior Championships. The 14-year-old from Cavalier Aquatics will race at the East meet. He is slated to swim six events — the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 100 fly, 200 fly and 200 IM.
Top seeds in the East include Sarasota’s Liam Custer (500 free), SwimMAC’s Baylor Nelson (200 IM, 200 breast and 400 IM), Carmel’s Gretchen Lueking (200 free), Dynamo’s Rye Ulett (200 back) and Eagle Aquatics’ Erika Pelaez (50 free and 100 free).
Other West top seeds at the Winter Junior Championships include Fort Collins’ Lucy Bell (100 fly and 200 fly) and Inspire’s Nate Germonprez (200 IM, 100 backstroke).
More on the meet here.
