Will Dressel and Ledecky swim the 200 IM prelims?

SPEEDO ATLANTA CLASSIC 2024 DRIVE BY JIM ELLIS CADILLAC

Saturday Preliminaries Heatsheet

The final preliminary session of the 2024 Atlanta Classic will include heats of the women’s and men’s 100 backstroke, 200 breaststroke, 200 individual medley and 50 freestyle. The 800 freestyle timed finals will also be contested, with the fastest heats swimming with tonight’s finals.

Live broadcast of Saturday preliminaries

Florida Freestylers Caeleb Dressel And Katie Ledecky are still spotted on the 200m IM preliminary qualifying sheet, but will either swim this morning? Ledecky is currently seeded third in the women’s 200m IM while Dressel is ranked 6th in the men’s 200 individual medley.

Ledecky is not expected to swim the women’s 800 freestyle, nor will she meet the top seed Ashley Twichell. Instead, Dune Coetzee of South Africa leads the 800 free seeds ahead of the timed finals. Meanwhile, Dressel is tied with Alberto Mestre for the men’s 50m free, top seed. With the 200m IM and 50m free back-to-back on the session schedule, it’s likely that Dressel will choose not to even swim the 200m IM this morning.

On another level, Georgia Zoie Hartman (5th) and that of Tennessee Camille Spink (8th) were eliminated from the women’s 200m IM in favor of stronger events. Hartman is currently fifth in the women’s 200m breaststroke, led by the Irish Mona McSharrywhile Spink places sixth in the women’s 50 freestyle, led by Tennessee Erika Connolly.

While these swimmers exercise their freedom to choose events, Phoebe Bacon of Wisconsin and Josephine Fuller should be the headliners in the women’s 200 individual medley and women’s 100 backstroke. Bacon had already won the 200m backstroke on Friday while Fuller had a victory in the 100m butterfly.