US Olympic swimming trials 2021 Wave 1: Highlights from day 2, expectations from day 3

The US Olympic swimming trials being held in Omaha, Nebraska, have produced some gripping performances so far. With the second day of the trials also coming to an end, many swimmers showed exceptional improvements from their qualifying and heat timings to surprise everyone watching on and made a name for themselves in the process.

Read: US Olympic Swimming Trials: Wave I, Day 2

US Olympic swimming trials: Day 2 highlights

200m freestyle

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was when Malia Rausch, in the A final of the women’s 200m freestyle, topped the entire event with a blistering time of 2:00.93 and set the US Olympic swimming trials alight.

Olympic Trials Wave I Prelims:Will Jackson fires a 1:50.82 in the men's 200m free, claiming the top spot for tonight's A-final! #GBO | #SwimTrials21 pic.twitter.com/0T592rsCR3

— Tennessee Swimming (@Vol_Swim) June 5, 2021

In the men’s edition of the same event, it was Liam Bresette who oversaw Patrick Sammon with a time of 1:49.22. Brestle was ahead on a slim margin of eight hundredths of a second. A strong last 50m split of 27.88 seconds from Bresette saw him come back from behind to seal the victory.

100m breaststroke

Heather Maccausland dominated the women’s 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:08.77, finishing a second ahead of her closest competitor Zoe Skirboll. However, both of their timings were good enough to seal them a spot in Wave II, the second level of the US Olympic swimming trials that is to be held later in the month.

Kylie Powers ties for 5th in the 100 breast (1:10.41) to earn a spot in tonight's A final. Alaya Smith adds a top-25 finish with a time of 1:11.73. #GigEm | #SwimTrials21 pic.twitter.com/g4IU3rEiw4

— Texas A&M Swimming & Diving (@AggieSwimDive) June 5, 2021

Zhier Fan (1:01.74) and Reid Makuta (1:01.88) from the men’s 100m breaststroke event joined Maccausland and Skirboll as the third and fourth people to qualify for Wave II on day 2, as their timing was below Wave II's standard of 1:01.97.

400m individual medley

Kate McCarville (4:47.15) was the only one in the women’s 400m individual medley that qualified for Wave II, as Katie Trace missed out on a Wave II spot by an extremely narrow 0.04 seconds.

“It was unbelievable." Basically sums up tonight's events as nine more swimmers punched their tickets to #SwimTrials21 Wave II. 👇

— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) June 6, 2021

Tyler Kopp swam an incredibly dominant men’s 400m individual medley as he beat his closest competitor, young gun Kyle Polsner, by a second. Both Klopp and Polsner set times under the 4:23.24 standard and progressed to Wave II of the US Olympic Swimming Trials.

US Olympic swimming trials: Day 3 expectations

Events on the roster for today at the US Olympic Swimming Trials include the 400m freestyle, 100m butterfly, and 200m backstroke for women and men.

400m freestyle

In the 400m freestyle event, the most well-known name in women’s swimming, Katie Ledeckey, earned her fame. She still holds the world record (3:56.46) in the event that she set in the 2016 Rio Olympics and is still ahead of her competition by a considerable margin.

In the heats for this event, Ellie Marquadt, Malia Rausch, and Summer Cardwell are the only swimmers to have set a sub 4:14.00 second time and would naturally be battling it out for the top spot in the finals.

In the men’s version of the event, Liam Bresette has set the top qualifying time (3:54.42). This is within touching distance of the Wave II standard (3:54.21), and he can easily meet the target as he has the heats and finals still to go.

100m butterfly

The 100m butterfly is one of the most competitive events of the meet and is always a highlight at the Olympics. Of the five heats yet to take place, only three swimmers have set a sub one minute time in qualifying. Hannah Saiz’ 59.77 was the fastest qualifying time and is two-tenths off the pace required for a Wave II berth.

The qualifying times set by swimmers for the 100m butterfly are incredibly close as only six-tenths of a second separate 24 of the 40 swimmers to have made Wave I. Michael Zarian holds the fastest qualifying time, which is only a marginal 0.01 seconds faster than second-placed Lucas Bureau.

200m backstroke

Megan Moroney qualified the fastest in the women’s 200m backstroke with a time of 2:13.16 and will try her best to make it to the all-important Wave II as she tries to find 0.2 seconds to meet the Wave II standard.

The 2:01.07 set by Jacob Steele was the fastest time of the qualifiers in the US Olympic Swimming Trials. One candidate to keep an eye on is Caeleb Maldari, who set the fourth fastest qualifying time. More notably, he was born in 2005 and has many years to assert his dominance in the event.