LEN has released more details of the inaugural European Under 23 Championships which take place later this year. The new information backs up the status of the meet as a development competition but also promises to make it an exciting one, with indications that it will be presented in a less traditional manner.

The key details are:

• The meet is firmly aimed at those between the ages of 19 and 23, locking out juniors, although for this first edition, teams will be permitted to enter one younger swimmer (aged 14 to 18) in each event
• There will only be mixed relays
• Events of 800m and up, plus the 400IM will be timed finals. It’s not clear why heats were retained for the 400m freestyle.
• The meet programme includes a 50m freestyle skins event
• Swimmers who have achieved a world championships A qualifying time must swim that event at this year’s world championships if they also want to swim it in Dublin

The last of these clarifications is the one with potentially the greatest implications, and it’s not quite clear what the intent from LEN is. Given this is being pitched as a development meet, it might have made more sense to have been the other way round, so that swimmers couldn’t swim an event in Dublin they had competed in at Worlds.

Evan Jones would remain in the frame for an U23 team after the latest clarifications. Pic: Bruce White for Scottish Swimming

So what impact does this clarification have on our hypothetical GB team? Well as it happens not that much. The putative selection hadn’t put a lower age limit on in any case so only the FINA ‘A’ time stipulation has an impact. In the table below the swimmers who would be affected based on their best times in 2022, are shown red; this group would be locked out of the relevant event in Dublin, unless they also swam the same event in Fukuoka.

The issue then for these five swimmers is the gaping chasm between the FINA A time and the GB consideration times, let alone the automatic qualifying standards. If they make the plane to Japan then of course they would have the option of backing that up in Dublin, but there is a real danger of them falling into the no-man’s land where they have the A time, but don’t get picked, locking them out of this meet too. Based on 2022, that’s a particular issue for Lauren Cox and Katie Shanahan but could easily trap a few others such as Ed Mildred, Jonathan Adam, or Keanna Macinnes.

Of course we don’t yet know what GB’s plans are for this championships; there still remains the distinct possibility that no GB team will go anyway, but these latest developments add another layer of complexity in predicting who might be able to travel across the Irish Sea in August.

Banner image: Katie Shanahan by ISL/Mine Kasapoglu