This year’s World Championship selection procedures for the United States are a bit different than what we’ve ever seen in the past; specifically in that for the first time, USA Swimming will select winners of non-Olympic events as a part of the World Championship roster. That’s as compared to previous years, where those events were filled exclusively from swimmers who were already on the roster.

(Note: the second spot in each of these non-Olympic events will be chosen as normal from swimmers who are already on the Worlds roster.)

In an even more surprising about-face, these non-Olympic winners get priority over the 5th and 6th place finishers in the 100 and 200 freestyle that in the past have been nearly guarantees to travel as relay alternates.

To read up on the full selection procedures, see this story.

For those unfamiliar, the non-Olympic events at the World Championships are:

50 fly (M&W)

50 back (M&W)

50 breast (M&W)

800 free (M)

1500 free (W)

The dilemma is that the FINA roster limits still sit at 26 men and 26 women in the pool, even with 8 new selection spots in the priority. These are not USA Swimming rules that can be fudged, rather they are hard-and-fast FINA rules that every country must adhere to (though typically only the Americans bump against this ceiling).

Don’t think that will be an issue? At last year’s Olympic Games, there were 23 men and 24 women. Add four to each of those numbers, and there’s a few swimmers who get left home. Then again, for the 2011 World Championships, the rosters were much smaller (21 men and 22 women), in which case things would’ve been fine.

Of course, the number of swimmers on “doubles” can fluctuate wildly in any given year, and if the 5th or 6th place finishers in the 100 and 200 free (selectors for the 400 and 800 free relays) were already on the team in something else, then of course it would be irrelevant as to where the roster size fell. Still, it seems highly likely, based on the math, that at least one swimmer will meet a selection criteria and will be left home because of the roster limit.

Where Will Roster Size Fall as Compared to Last year?

It’s really quite difficult to project where the “natural” roster size (aka without the roster caps) might fall this year until we see how many swimmers qualify in multiple events. My intuitive perception would be that the “natural” qualification list will be shorter this year than last year. That’s based on the belief that with fewer of the second-tier of swimmers at this year’s meet (these are the swimmers who could qualify for a National Team, or a relay spot, but probably won’t win an individual medal) through retirement or preference to wait until the U.S. Open to taper, it’s less likely that these swimmers will jump up and snag a roster spot on a really good day.

Those types of swimmers are less likely to pick up multiple roster spots than the Ryan Lochtes, Tyler Clarys, or Missy Franklins of the world. Therefore, fewer of them around should in theory lead to a smaller ‘natural’ roster. But that’s just a hunch; there’s surely an argument that would give credence to expectation of a bigger roster.

That especially is the fact that Michael Phelps is not swimming, and on the men’s side he’s used to sucking up so many roster spots and adding so many “doubles,” “triples,” etc.

We don’t know much about where the doubles will come in these 50 meter events; if the winner of the men’s 100 back will also win the 50 free. There’s lots of guesses and really strongly-backed opinions, but with the Americans taking so few opportunities historically to swim the 50 meter races, we just have no firm actionable evidence on what’s going to happen.

The Math

There are 26 spots for men and 26 spots for women. That is not an arbitrary number, rather it is based on the fact that this is exactly as many swimmers as it takes to put a unique swimmer in each of two spots for the 13 Olympic events.

Of course, it’s highly unlikely that those 26 spots will go to 26 different swimmers on either the men’s or women’s side.

The U.S. prioritizes the top four in the freestyle events for relays over the second-place finisher in any other event. That means 30 “swims” are absorbed through two levels of the selections, which can be fairly safely assumed to be completed. Specific to gender, once there is some combination of four “doubles,” then these two groups are fully selected. I.E., if Lochte qualifies for the 800 free relay, the 200 IM, the 200 back, and Tyler Clary qualifies for the 400 IM, 200 fly, and 200 back, that’s four total extra ‘doubles,’ and all first-and-second place finishers in each event goes to the meet.

Then things get interesting. Four more men and four more women could earn consideration in the stroke 50’s and the off-distance events. For all of these event winners to be qualified, there would have to be another four doublers, or eight altogether, again gender-specific.

Then, for all of the 5th and 6th place freestylers to be taken as relay alternates, there would have to be another four gender-specific doubles.

You can see why the math is stacked against these relay alternates.

Tie-Breakers

If the roster limit falls in the middle of any one of these steps, then the ties will be broken based on a ratio of the World Record:

The swimmer with the highest number by the above calculation will be chosen first, then the second, etc. Both 5th place relay alternates for each gender would take automatic precedent over both 6th place finishers, regardless of the ratio results.

What’s the Danger to competitiveness?

Directly, very little. Selecting relay alternates is a good way to get swimmers world-class experience Realistically, though, those 5th and 6th place swimmers have the purpose of eating up swims in relay prelims that are little more than a formality for the Americans. Take the Olympics last year: all of those 5th and 6th place swimmers were at the meet to swim a single relay event only (McLean, Houchin, Lezak, Feigen, Vreeland, Anderson, Coughlin, and Weir, plus Tarwater after getting the Phelps-indivudal-swim-scratch-bump).

The real, hard-and-fast loss, though, might be of the lack of options. It’s hard to predict how swimmers will react on a second taper between Worlds Trials and the World Championships a month later, and taking the next two swimmers allows coaches to choose the ‘hot hands’ in finals. This is not always a dillema, but in London there was one example where coaches took advantage. Shannon Vreeland was 5th in the 200 free at the Olympic Trials, but after splitting a 1:57.0 in prelims took the spot of 4th-place finisher Lauren Perdue. The difference wouldn’t have cost the Americans their gold, but the same situation in ether the men’s or women’s 400 free relay could have a bigger impact.

Just food for thought. SwimSwam, with the help of contributor Amanda Smith, will track how the doubles and triples are after each finals session and keep our readers up-to-date as to how this situation develops as the meet goes on.