2024 U.S. Olympic Selection
Although the event is called the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, it also serves as a selection event for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships to be held in Australia later this summer, Aug. 21-24.
You can read the full selection criteria, but here’s a concise version.
In addition to the usual rules for being eligible to represent the United States in international competition, swimmers must be between 14 and 18 years old as of Dec. 31, 2024, and not be on an Olympic team roster.
From there, qualified swimmers are ranked in each event based on their placement in the trials. Placements are determined based on how far a swimmer progresses. Thus, junior swimmers who advance to the finals will be given priority over those who do not advance to the finals, regardless of their qualifying times.
“Rank” means the ranking of athletes who are eligible to compete in each event in the Qualifying Tournament. The results of the Final will be used to determine rankings from 1st to 8th (hereinafter “Final”). The results of the Semi-Final will be used to determine rankings from 9th to 16th (hereinafter “Semi-Final”). The results of the Qualifying Tournament will be used to determine rankings from 17th to 24th (hereinafter “Qualifying Tournament”). However, if a Semi-Final is not held in a Qualifying Tournament for a particular event, the results of the Qualifying Tournament will be used to determine rankings from 9th to 16th (hereinafter “Semi-Final”). Thus, athletes who compete in the Final will be ranked higher than athletes who compete in the Semi-Final and Qualifying Tournaments, and athletes who compete in the Semi-Final will be ranked higher than athletes who compete in the Qualifying Tournament.
Registered athletes are limited to 20 per gender and, like other major championships, USA Swimming has a priority-based selection procedure.
- Priority 1: The top two swimmers in the 100m freestyle and 200m freestyle.
- Priority 2: The best performing swimmer in each of the other events.
- Priority 3: The third-best performing swimmer in the 100-meter freestyle and 200-meter freestyle.
- Priority 4: Second best swimmer in the 100m butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.
- Priority 5: Second best performing swimmer in any other event.
- Priority 6: The fourth-best performer in the 100m freestyle and 200m freestyle.
If selecting all swimmers who qualify in a particular priority order would exceed the registration limit, a tiebreaker will be determined based on what each swimmer’s finishing time is as a percentage of their relevant Olympic qualification time.
We will be keeping a close eye on the projected roster this week, but because Olympic-eligible swimmers are not available, it will be difficult to confirm the entire projected roster until the end of the meet.
