Breakdown: 20 New Women, 17 New Men on 2014-2015 U.S. National Team
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Ryan Lochte leads the team of 51 men with five event entries onto the 2014-2015 U.S. National Team. Archive Photo via Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com
Breakdown: 20 New Women, 17 New Men on 2014-2015 U.S. National Team
The way USA Swimming, and most major swimming nations, assign their National Team rosters is by a collection of individual event results. That results in a list like the one seen here.
At the end of the day though, the swimmers, collectively, are the U.S. National Team, a full team, a collective team, and so below we’ve presented that team with this in mind.
Some observations:
- In total, there were 51 men and 53 women on this year’s USA Swimming National Team.
- Jordan Wilimovsky, who made the U.S. National Team in the 1500 meter free and the open water 10km swim, is on his first pool National Team.
- By our math, that’s a decrease of four men and the same number of women as last year’s team.
- Ryan Lochte earned the most invites onto the National Team with 5. Michael Phelps, Tyler Clary, Missy Franklin, Elizabeth Beisel, and Becca Mann got four each. Franklin was the only swimmer who got four invites without one of them being an IM event.
- Kendyl Stewart was on the National Team last year, but in the 200 backstroke. This year, she made the team as the National Champion, and number-one ranked, 100 butterflier.
- Maya DiRado is also the top-ranked American in the 200 IM from the relevant qualifying meets - also in an event that she didn’t even make the National Team in last year.
- There was huge turnover in the women’s distance events. In the 400 free, four out of six National Team swimmers are new from last season, and in the 800 free, five of the six are new. The exception is Katie Ledecky.
- Every event saw at least one swimmer change. The rare three instances with just one swimmer changed in an event were the men’s 100 back, the men’s 400 IM, and the men’s open water 10k.
- Allison Schmitt missed the Pan Pacs roster, but she did earn her way back on to the National Team, thanks to her 200 free.
- Molly Hannis has progressed so far in her 200 breaststroke that she made the National Team in that event, not her previously-preferred 100 breaststroke that put her on the squad in 2013-2014.