The U.S. Olympic swimming trials come to a dramatic end on Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska Only two events will be held on Sunday, with no morning preliminaries to clutter the proceedings.
And the two events are big ones. The women's 50-meter freestyle final is the all-out dash that determines the fastest American woman in the water. The men's 1500-meter freestyle final is the other event Sunday, and it is the polar opposite of the 50 freestyle, with endurance and mental toughness being the hallmarks of that event.
Day 8 will provide the climactic backdrop to the eight days of swimming trials, perhaps providing conclusive answers to larger questions about America's hopes for the Olympics.
The final chapter will be written
Sunday's final day of competition will provide the final word on which swimmers emerge as a the American headliners heading into the Rio Olympics.
The week has produced several potential stars who will get media attention in the days leading up to the Olympics. But the final chapter will be written Sunday evening, with a few swimmers still capable of establishing themselves as talking points for the Olympics.
Katie Ledecky, Maya DiRado and Michael Phelps have already written their pre-Olympic stories, but others could be added to the the narrative Sunday.
Abbey Weitzeil could put an exclamation mark on her week by winning the women's 50 freestyle, but Olympic veteran Dana Vollmer could become a sentimental favorite for the Olympics if she should qualify in this wild dash where almost anything can happen. Many of these swimmers have already qualified for Rio in other events, but this is a chance for them to become a major chapter in the story of the trials.
Connor Jaeger (pictured above) has the advantage of swimming in the very last event of the trials, the 1500 freestyle final, and closing the show with an impressive performance can have a lasting impression.
Matrure trio challenges youngsters in the sprint
Three veterans, Vollmer, Madison Kennedy and Amanda Weir, will swim in the 50-meter freestyle final, but 33-year-old veteran Natalie Coughlin won't.
Coughlin's decision to drop out of the 50-meter freestyle, an event in which she had a chance to qualify, provided a rather sad end to her Olympic career, as reported by Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. She finished a disappointing eighth in the 100-meter backstroke, an event in which she won gold medals in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and the 50 freestyle was her last chance to make this year's U.S. Olympic team. Coughlin has won 12 Olympic medals, tied for the most by an American swimmer, but the list will not grow.
It would have been interesting to see Vollmer, Kennedy, Weir and Coughlin all compete in the 50-meter freestyle final, as they represent an older age group competing against the up-and-comers.
Vollmer, Kennedy and Coughlin all swam at the University of California at Berkeley, and Vollmer and Coughlin swam legs on the U.S. 800-meter freestyle relay team that won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, setting a world record in the process, according to the Washington Post. Vollmer was 16-yearsold at the time.
Vollmer, now 28, has already qualified for the Rio Olympics in the 100-meter butterfly, and she did so just 15 months after having a baby. She will try to become the first American swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal after giving birth, per Nicole Auerbach of USA Today. The story will become more intriguing if Vollmer also qualifies in the 50-meter freestyle, although she is not among the favorites in the event.
Kennedy, who is also 28, could end up being the story of the final day. She has never made an Olympic team, and Sunday is her final shot as getting to Rio. She finished fifth in the 50-meter freestyle in the 2012 Olympic trials, but she is among the favorites in Sunday's 50-meter freestyle final.
The 30-year-old Weir finished third this week in the 100 freestyle, which was enough to earn an Olympic berth on the relay team, according to Jason Butt of The Telegraph, but not enough get a spot in an individual event. She participated in relay events at the 2004 Olympics when she was 18 and again in the 2012 Olympics, but she has never competed in an individual Olympic event. Sunday is her last chance.
Jaeger's quest for stardom in the finale
Connor Jaeger has already qualified for the Rio Olympics by winning the 400-meter freestyle, but his best chance to medal in Rio is probably in the 1500-meter freestyle. He set an American record while finishing second in this long-distance event at last year's World Championships, and he won the 1500 at the 2014 Pan American Games.
However, Jaeger may be most famous for what he did at this same venue in Omaha during preliminaries in the 2012 Olympic trials. He broke 15 minutes for the first time in his life in that preliminary race, but when he reached the wall to complete the final lap, finishing second, he did not realize his race was over. He flipped and continued on for 75 meters before it dawned on him that he had already completed 1500 meters.
“I don’t generally count my strokes or laps," he said afterward, according to USA Swimming. "I prefer to just get into a rhythm and go, so it’s easy to lose track of where I am in the race. Why I had to miscount in the most important race of my life (at the time) is a mystery.”
Although it was an embarrassing moment, the ability of a swimmer to be completely in the moment and lose himself amid the competition is a trait that seems laudable. Presumably, Jaeger will know where the finish line is if he wins the 1500 at these trials. He is the favorite to win it in Omaha.
He finished more than seven seconds ahead of second-place qualifier Jordan Wilimovsky in Saturday morning's preliminaries, so it would take a major upset to prevent Jaeger from winning the final event of the swimming trials in impressive style.
Last chance in the 50-meter freestyle
Simone Manuel, Kennedy and Weitzeil look like the favorites in the women's 50-meter freestyle final, and the pressure will be intense because neither Manuel nor Kennedy has qualified for the Olympics in an individual event yet. Finishing third in this race could be heart-breaking, and the difference between second and third could be hundredths of a second.
At the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, the time difference between the second- and third-place finishers was 0.05 of a second, a rather small margin to spell the difference between competing for an Olympic medal and watching from the sidelines.
As a 24-year-old in 2012, Kennedy had faster times in both the preliminaries and the semifinals than she did in the final, winding up fifth, 0.37 seconds behind second-place finisher Kara Lynn Joyce. This year, Kennedy had the fastest time in the preliminary heats and had the second-fastest time in the semifinals. However, she has to perform at her best in the final.
Manuel was the only American to reach the final in this event in last year's World Championships, but Weitzeil may have less pressure on her because she has already qualified for the Olympics in the 100 freestyle. Weitzeil had the best time in Saturday's semifinals.
Any one of five or six swimmers could finish in the top two. A lot of things can happen in this wild race that should be over in less than 25 seconds. This race has the flashy appeal of the 100-meter dash in track, because it is simply an all-out scramble in which every stroke is critical.
Neither of the swimmers who qualified for the Olympics in this event four years ago (Jessica Hardy and Joyce) is involved this time, so the U.S. will have new Olympic representatives in this showcase race.