World Championship Trial Logistics

I often get asked about the selection process for making the Olympic team and the World Championship team. The process is the same for both teams. So here's what's about to go down in a week or so...and what I need to do to book my ticket to Roma!

World Championship Trials:
The format is prelims and finals. Unlike the Olympic Trials, Olympics and World Championships there are no semi-finals at the World Championship Trials. In order to qualify for the World Champs you need to swim in the A heat in finals which is comprised of one of the eight fastest times from the preliminaries that morning. Once you get into a final you need to either win or get second to automatically book your ticket. In the 100 and 200 freestyles they will take the top six swimmers in order to have enough swimmers for the 400 and 800 freestyle relays.

July 8: I will swim the preliminaries of the 200 freestyle in the morning. No matter what happens in this race I will scratch (take myself out of the race). I have a good 200 freestyle but at this meet I will be using it mainly as a tune-up race. Swimming the 200 will get a lot of my early meet jitters out of the way. I will get a feel for the pool and the surroundings of racing at this meet. Although it doesn't matter how I feel, this race will give me a bit of a temperature reading...I want to be running HOT baby! The rest of this day I will chill and get ready for my next race...the 50 free.

July 9: The 50 free. This is going to be a fun day. So here's how the day will tentatively go. I'll wake up pretty early (6:45am or so) and go to the pool and do a wake-up swim. The wake-up swim is short...only about ten minutes, but it makes sure I'm up and gets my muscles and body going more than they would if I had just stayed in bed. I take every race seriously but at big meets like this I always do a wake-up swim just to let my body and mind know that it's about to get real! I'll go back to the hotel and eat some breakfast. Not too much food because I like to race a little bit hungry and lean. It's better to be a hungry, ferocious monster than a full and gentle pig...you get the point. Before I know it I'll be back at the pool doing my main warm-up for the race. Boom...Race. After the race I'll warm-down, eat, try to take a nap, chill for a bit, eat a little something and go back to the pool for finals. Hit it! This is when the big boys get separated from the rest. The finals is the big show. This is what I train for and focus on all year. Essentially I have one chance to accomplish what I've worked an entire year to do. A perfect Eddie Reese quote for this situation is, "AT THIS LEVEL THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO ROOM FOR ERROR."

July 10: The 100 Free. This will basically be the same type of schedule as July 9th.

Trust me when I say this will go by in a flash!