Did USA Swimming Pick World Championship Team Too Early?<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Katie Meili's winning time in the 100 breast at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Charlotte would have put her on the world champs team if she swam it last year.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/did-usa-swimming-pick-its-world-championship-team-too-early\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did USA Swimming Pick Its World Championship Team Too Early?\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Katie Meili's winning time in the 100 breast at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Charlotte would have put her on the world champs team if she swam it last year.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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\/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@swimmingworld\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeff Commings\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/did-usa-swimming-pick-its-world-championship-team-too-early\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/did-usa-swimming-pick-its-world-championship-team-too-early\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jeff Commings\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/11d58f31d00d146ff00dc388db73f92a\"},\"headline\":\"Did USA Swimming Pick Its World Championship Team Too 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{"id":134086,"date":"2015-05-15T18:33:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=134086"},"modified":"2015-05-15T19:03:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T02:03:45","slug":"did-usa-swimming-pick-its-world-championship-team-too-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/did-usa-swimming-pick-its-world-championship-team-too-early\/","title":{"rendered":"Did USA Swimming Pick Its World Championship Team Too Early?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial content for the 2015 Arena Pro Swim Series Charlotte is sponsored by Arena<\/a>. For full Swimming World coverage, check out our coverage page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Commentary by Jeff Commings<\/i><\/p>\n

Katie Meili\u2019s 1:06.50 to win the 100 breaststroke today at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Charlotte showed why USA Swimming did the wrong thing in choosing the world championship team last summer.<\/p>\n

Meili placed fifth in the 100 breast at last summer\u2019s nationals, good enough to qualify for the Pan American Games team, but would things be different if the selection meet were held this summer? Meili\u2019s time today would have won at last summer\u2019s nationals by one hundredth of a second, and don\u2019t think for a second that Meili doesn\u2019t know that. I doubt Meili was fully rested for tonight\u2019s swim, which portends some great things for this summer. I am sure Micah Lawrence and Jessica Hardy will represent the Stars and Stripes very well in the 100 breast in Kazan at world championships, but could Katie Meili have been the better choice?<\/p>\n

This reminds me of the situation involving Matt Grevers at the 2010 nationals. Though regarded as the top backstroker in the country at the time, he placed fourth at the 2010 nationals, missing out on that summer\u2019s Pan Pacific championship and the world championships the following year. Grevers did qualify for the 2012 Olympic team and won gold in the 100 backstroke. Though Meili would have to drop a lot of time to contend for the gold medal at the world championships, I wonder if she\u2019ll put together the fastest time among the American women in the 100 breast this summer. Anything in the 1:05 range will make her an instant contender for a spot on next year\u2019s Olympic team, shedding the label of \u201coutside possibility\u201d that she\u2019s had for a while.<\/p>\n

Since joining SwimMAC Carolina\u2019s Team Elite a few years ago, Meili has continually improved. Her best time in 2012 was 1:09.68, and she\u2019s chipped away at her personal best every year since then, and it looks like she is starting to get into serious contention at the right time. As was the case with Grevers in 2011, Meili is surely going to use this year as fuel to make the big leap forward in 2016.<\/p>\n

————-
\nCould Natalie Coughlin<\/strong> be making a return to the 100 backstroke? Since not making the 2012 Olympic team in the event, Coughlin turned her focus almost exclusively to freestyle. She has raced backstroke in a few in-season meets, but always said freestyle was the new primary stroke for her. She made the Pan American Games team in the 50 and 100 freestyles, but it looks like the two-time 100 back Olympic champ is toying with the idea of adding that event to her schedule again.<\/p>\n

Coughlin swam a 100 back time trial today, and almost broke 1:00 with a 1:00.08 in Charlotte. Yikes! That\u2019s extremely fast, and probably one her fastest in-season swims in her career. She had gone 1:00.20 earlier this year, but the fact that Coughlin has now swum the 100 back twice in the span of a few months makes me believe she wants to return to the event that made her a superstar.<\/p>\n

Why not? What harm would it do? Yes, the competition will be fierce in Omaha next summer, but the 100 back would be her first event of Trials. It would allow her to shake off the jitters (yes, even 12-time Olympic medalists get nervous) and be fully ready for the sprint freestyles. And if she magically makes the team in the 100 back, then it becomes a nice bonus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"