OMAHA, Neb. — Here in Omaha, for the fourth time in a row, the U.S. Olympic Trials for swimming are on. This was always a big stage for Michael Phelps, and no more so than in 2008, when he qualified for five individual events and put himself in place to swim on three relays — setting the stage for the unmatched performance he would put on later that summer in Beijing, going a perfect eight-for-eight.
The Phelps Show that summer proved must-see TV on NBC. Some significant cohort of 5- to 8-year-old boys tuned in. Those boys are now 18 to 21, prime time for swimmers.
Where are they?
Girls across America back then clearly saw Michael on TV and said, let’s be like Mike. The U.S. women’s team heading for Tokyo is likely to be strong if not dominant.
The men? Did they get drawn to football? Or — since competitive swimmers tend to be tall — basketball? Or volleyball? Or what? Where are the dudes?
Michael and Boomer Phelps on deck Tuesday at the U.S. Olympic Trials with Kaitlin Sandeno // Getty Images
To be fair, it’s only Day 3 of these Trials. And anything can happen. It’s sports. But the U.S. men’s national swim team would appear to be on course for a significantly subpar performance at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, just like it absorbed at the 2019 world championships in Gwangju, South Korea.
And this time the world is — and more importantly, fans in the United States are — way more likely to pay attention.
Did someone say an ass-kicking? Who?
Caeleb Dressel is likely to win a haul of medals. But he alone cannot cover up a systemic issue.
Let’s say Ryan Murphy, the 2016 gold medalist in both the 100 and 200 back, winner Tuesday night of the 100 back in 52.33, comes back strong in Tokyo. Chase Kalisz, winner Sunday night of the 400 individual medley, is again a medal contender. Who else, though, can be said with confidence — for emphasis, with confidence — to be a medal favorite?
Kieran Smith, 21, of Ridgefield, Conn., a rising senior at the University of Florida, won the men’s 200 here Tuesday evening, in 1:45.29. That amounts to the year’s sixth-best time, behind two Brits, a Japanese, a Russian and a Korean.
Smith also won the men’s 400 here Sunday night, in 3:44.86. He was the only guy in Sunday night’s 400 to have thus met the Olympic qualifying standard. The only male in the entire United States! How can that be?
Moreover, and granted there is lots of time between now and Tokyo to put in work, that time — 3:44.86 — would have tied Smith for ninth-fastest in 2021 to date. That’s a long way from a medal. And the other 400 guys around the world are going to be trying to get faster, too.
The men’s 400 free Olympic qualifying standard is 3:46.78. For the record, Zane Grothe — who finished 11th here at the Trials — had also made the qualifying cut. He did so in 2019. The Olympic qualifying period, which began March 1, 2019, runs through June 27, 2021.
The situation was so dire, so grim, so absurd that USA Swimming announced a “time trial” would be added to Tuesday night’s schedule to see if anyone could dip under 3:46.78. Jake Mitchell of the University of Michigan, who is from Carmel, Indiana, had finished the second Sunday, in 3:48.17. He swam alone Tuesday in Lane 4 after the main program had ended, the crowd cheering him on; he touched in 3:45.86. The crowd went crazy. Mitchell slapped the water in glee and flexed his right arm like he was Schwarzenegger or something.
“Ohmigod!” he said, winded, on the deck, adding a moment later, “It’s just an incredible feeling.”
Sincere and heartfelt congratulations to Mitchell, who is 19. Absent some catastrophe, he will be — as he got to announce from the deck — an Olympian, and that is and will enduringly be meaningful for him, his family, his friends. Drew Kibler of the University of Texas swam with Mitchell growing up at Carmel; he ended Tuesday as the third-place finisher in the 200, earning a spot in the 4x2 relay. He said of his friend, “I can’t think of anybody who deserves it more. He is such a great guy.”
The fairy-tale ending to the Mitchell story would be if he medals in Tokyo. The rest of this paragraph is why people who don’t understand how journalism works tend not to appreciate journalists. OK, you don’t like us much. We get it. The stats say Mitchell is a distant longshot. His 3:45.86 is not even a top-10 2021 time.
If you take Dressel out of the mix — he won eight medals in Gwangju, including the new format of mixed relays, races not available to Phelps — the 2019 results are stark. Not counting Dressel, the U.S. guys won three individual medals. Three.
It’s true that selection procedures for the 2019 team were different, very different, from the pressure cauldron, the four years for 1-2 or you’re out for the individual events, that is the Trials. All the same: three individual medals in 2019. Three.
Consider, too: the Americans have medaled every single time (except, of course, 1980) the 4x200 free relay has been run. That’s 24 straight Olympics. Yet it’s far from clear that the U.S. guys will medal in the 4x2 in Tokyo. They finished third in that race in Gwangju, more than a second back of the winning Australians — and a mere three-hundredths of a second ahead of Italy, six-hundredths ahead of Britain. This year, Britain, Russia and Australia have put up impressive 200 free times.
When Phelps and crew raced this event in Beijing, they set a world record, 6:58.56. The next year, at the world championships in Rome, Phelps and a slightly different lineup lowered the record by one-hundredth of a second, a mark that still stands.
Understand, and clearly:
The Japanese are racing at a home Games. They have been working toward Tokyo 2020 for years. It’s good for everyone when the home team does well at a home Games, and that usually happens.
The Brits — led by the world’s No. 1 breaststroking animal, Adam Peaty — have been primed for these Games as well.
If you don’t think China is an emerging swimming power, you are mistaken. At the 2019 worlds, Xu Jiayu won the men’s 100 backstroke; Yan Zibei took third in the 100 breast.
Journalism is not cheerleading. Some doubtlessly will find these facts — and assertions about the U.S. men’s team — unpleasant and react strongly. If the U.S. men prove this column wrong in Tokyo, no problem here.
But the reality is what it is.
This leads to the obvious question:
Why — when the U.S. women’s team is so strong — would it appear there is an imbalance with the men?
On Tuesday, Lilly King predictably won her specialty, the 100 breast, in 1:04.79. Second went to Lydia Jacoby of the Seward Tsunami Swim Club. That would be Seward, Alaska. Alaska! Jacoby, who is 17, finished in 1:05.28. Those marked the top two times in the world this year.
Alaska is producing champion female swimmers!
Alaska!
Where are the guys?!
As ever, King seems ready to provide bulletin-board material. She said as these Trials got underway that she believes the U.S. women can win every gold medal in Tokyo. This would be akin to the odds of my Northwestern Wildcats winning the 2022 national championship in football but, OK, credit to the irrepressible King for confidence yet again.
“I feel like this has been blown up a little bit,” King allowed Tuesday night at a news conference. “Pretty much all I said is that I believe in our team and that we have the possibility and the chance to win all the gold medals. I wasn’t trying to start anything up but as always it’s been spun that way.”
King is assuredly a medal contender. Katie Ledecky would seem a lock for her distance events, the 800 and 1500, to be run here later this week. Ledecky already has won the Trials 400, though in a slower-than-Ledecky time, 4:01-ish, for someone who typically goes under four minutes. This immediately sparked sharp concern among the swim cognoscenti. Relax, Ledecky said Tuesday night: she is human, simply had nerves in her first race back after the pandemic-induced layoff and, after all, won the race. Earlier Tuesday evening, she swam the fastest semifinal time in the 200 free, 1:55.83.
On Monday, Torri Huske, who is 18 and from Arlington, Virginia, and will swim for Stanford in the fall — Ledecky just graduated — won the women’s 100 butterfly in 55.66, fastest in the world this year. Ledecky said she saw Huske doing origami a half-hour before the race, cool as a cucumber. Clare Curzan, 16, from Cary, North Carolina, took second, 77-hundredths back.
The women’s 100 backstroke finals Tuesday evening saw 19-year-old Regan Smith of Lakeville, Minnesota, the former world record holder, win in 58.35; 21-year-old Rhyan White of the University of Alabama took second, 25-hundredths back. White is the first American to have competed in the Youth Olympic Games — she did so in Buenos Aires in 2018 — to make the senior U.S. Olympic Team.
“My heart is pounding,” Smith said, adding a moment later, “I’m just so hyped.”
Meanwhile, consider, because this is not just about Tokyo:
The Los Angeles Games and 2028 are only seven years out. If the U.S. swim team does not dominate at those Games, it will be not just an opportunity lost; it will be a huge mission fail.
Unequivocally, as he presides here over the stage he once dominated as an athlete, bearded and relaxed, swinging between interviews on the pool deck or with NBC or just hanging in the stands with his wife and family, one thing is plain — The Phelps Years (in the pool, that is) are over. Further, no matter how it ends, whether he makes the team or not, 2021 marks the last lap of The Ryan Lochte Era. And the Nathan Adrian Epoch. And the Eon of Matt Grevers. Too, the Glorious Anthony Ervin Tattoo Experiment has run its course.
Full and immense credit to all these guys, gold medalists each, good guys (in their own ways — Lochte, for real, too) each, willing and fun and interesting interviews each, a sincere pleasure to have been around for all these years — in person just as you have seen them pixilated on your TV screens.
So:
Who’s next? How to develop that next generation?
Throughout the arc of his career, the one that saw him win 28 Olympic medals, 23 gold, a stretch of five Games that stamped him as the greatest Olympic athlete of all time (no argument, don’t even start), Phelps said repeatedly the medals were great and all but he had one overarching goal.
To grow the sport of swimming.
How to gauge success — the metrics — that can, and probably inevitably will, vary? Numbers of young people involved in the sport? Rates of diversity and inclusion? More masters swimmers? Mental health attributes of those who swim regularly? Numbers of medals at world and Olympic meets?
Keenly, as the first part of these Trials spotlights: how to get America’s boys and young men away from football, most of all — but basketball and volleyball and lacrosse and on and on and on?
Clearly, one important measure is the success of the U.S. national team, and especially at the Olympics. Phelps clearly understood as much. It is his legacy. Now: what can and should USA Swimming do to enhance it?