already on the road to melbourne
If ever there was a swimming equivalent of getting straight back on the horse, then it can’t have come much closer than the forthcoming Commonwealth Games Trials which start in Sheffield today. The meet, which is combined with the ASA Youth Championships, gives many of Britain’s World Championship squad an immediate opportunity to redeem their Montreal performances as they seek to book a place in Melbourne next spring.
This competition is the first chance for England’s swimmers to stake their claim to a place in the Commonwealth Games team, but in common with most recent selection policies to come out of Loughbourough, there will be a second chance at a Stage 3 meet to be held in Swansea in December. The qualifying standard that needs to be achieved to guarantee selection this week, the ‘A’ time, is no easier than that posed for Montreal, again being equal to the 10th fastest time in the world last year, based on a maximum of two swimmers per nation. Unlike that team however, any remaining spaces after this weeks competition can be filled by swimmers posting slightly slower times, the ‘B’ time, equivalent to the 16th best time in the world last year, two per nation, at the Stage 3 meet.
After all selection meets have been held, there still remains the opportunity for the management to nominate further swimmers for the team if spaces remain. In this case, swimmers must have bettered the ‘C’ qualifying time, equal to the 6th best time from a Commonwealth swimmer last year, with a maximum of 3 swimmers from any one country. This is in most cases an easier standard to reach, except in the odd occasions where the time happens to equal the world top 16 time.
Complicated? Only a little; the thinking from the brains trust at British Swimming may have gone something like this. The World Championships team would return from Montreal fresh from their taper and still swimming fast, book themselves their Commonwealth Games spot this week and then have little to worry about for the next 6 months, apart from training for Melbourne. Unfortunately given the form that many showed in Montreal it looks as though the Stage 3 meet will be occupying many of them more than one would have hoped. Certainly it does not look like a large number of swimmers will book a place this week, although the likes of Melanie Marshall, Jo Jackson, Chris Cook, Liam Tancock, Kate Haywood and Rebecca Cooke will all fancy their chances. Meanwhile many of those who missed out on Montreal will no doubt be trying to prove the selectors wrong, Mark Foster springs to mind, and now have the perfect vehicle to do just that.
More interesting though will be the performance of a host of junior swimmers who have come off marvellous performances at European Youth Olympics and Junior Championships. Given that the England is able to enter up to three swimmers in each event, swimmers such as Lizzie Simmonds, Jessica Dickons and Fran Halsall will all fancy their chances of gaining selection. Although the 'A' time may be beyond their capabilities at this point, they all stand an excellent chance of achieving selection under one of the other criteria come the end of the year. The same rationale applies to those who are on the fringes of relay selection, particularly in the context of some of the impressive 200m freestyle times that the junior girls have been producing this summer.
Away from the selection battles, the meet will also see a farewell for Karen Pickering. The 2002 Commonwealth Champion over 200m freestyle calls time on her swimming career after competing in the 50m freestyle event in Sheffield.