[ColoradoTree]

I'm confident Ledecky was preserving some energy, since her time was 3.64 seconds slower than her best time so far this year, whereas many of the other A final qualifiers were better than or close to their best times of the year.  Ledecky didn't have to go all out,but other swimmers had to be close to their best just to make the A final. Both the 8 seed coming in (i.e., the last spot in the A final) and the 17 seed coming in (i.e., just missing out on the B final and thus not scoring any team points) had season-best times in the 1:37:xx range, so margins were tight coming in. Ledecky's best time coming in was 9 seconds better than the 2 seed, so she probably figured she could drop a few seconds and still be the top seed for the final comfortably. No one besides Ledecky has gone sub-1:35 in the 500 free this year, and that held true in the prelims; don't be shocked if Ledecky gets 1:25:xx or better in tonight's final.

Based on the psych sheet, Stanford would have been expected to send two swimmers to the A final (Ledecky and Pitzer) and two to the B final (Drabot and Stevens).  That's what we ended up sending, but it's Ledecky and Drabot to the A final and Pitzer and Forde to the B final.  Still 4 scorers and the top seed, so the points out of this event should be right about where we'd expect, just with a couple of different names.  Forde just missed out on the A final, too, finishing 15 hundredths of a second out of 8th.  I wouldn't be surprised if Stanford netted more points from this event than the psych sheet would have predicted. And the psych sheet is already suggesting that Stanford wins a repeat national championship by an overwhelming margin this week, so over-performing in individual events is gravy.

[ColoradoTree]

I'm confident Ledecky was preserving some energy, since her time was 3.64 seconds slower than her best time so far this year, whereas many of the other A final qualifiers were better than or close to their best times of the year.  Ledecky didn't have to go all out,but other swimmers had to be close to their best just to make the A final. Both the 8 seed coming in (i.e., the last spot in the A final) and the 17 seed coming in (i.e., just missing out on the B final and thus not scoring any team points) had season-best times in the 1:37:xx range, so margins were tight coming in. Ledecky's best time coming in was 9 seconds better than the 2 seed, so she probably figured she could drop a few seconds and still be the top seed for the final comfortably. No one besides Ledecky has gone sub-1:35 in the 500 free this year, and that held true in the prelims; don't be shocked if Ledecky gets 1:25:xx or better in tonight's final.

Based on the psych sheet, Stanford would have been expected to send two swimmers to the A final (Ledecky and Pitzer) and two to the B final (Drabot and Stevens).  That's what we ended up sending, but it's Ledecky and Drabot to the A final and Pitzer and Forde to the B final.  Still 4 scorers and the top seed, so the points out of this event should be right about where we'd expect, just with a couple of different names.  Forde just missed out on the A final, too, finishing 15 hundredths of a second out of 8th.  I wouldn't be surprised if Stanford netted more points from this event than the psych sheet would have predicted. And the psych sheet is already suggesting that Stanford wins a repeat national championship by an overwhelming margin this week, so over-performing in individual events is gravy.