17-year-old swimming phenom Missy Franklin will sign up for five individual events at the Olympic trials later this month in Omaha, her hometown paper, The Denver Post, reports.
Franklin will swim the 50-, 100-, and 200-meter freestyle and the 100- and 200-meter backstroke. If she qualifies for all five events, she will likely compete in 8 events in London: the five individual races and three relays.
Franklin decided not to compete in the 200 individual medley (IM), one of her best events, because the 200 IM prelims are on the same day as the prelims for the 200 free and 100 back.
NBC’s Jason Devaney believes that Franklin has a good chance of qualifying in four of the five events. He is less confident in her ability to finish in the top two in the 50 freestyle. Franklin is the reigning world champion and holds the short-course world record in the 200 backstroke.
Will Missy Franklin swim 7 events in London? 8 events? (Photo by Chuck Burton, AP)
Meanwhile, on the men’s side, 14-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps still isn’t sure whether he’ll swim the 400 individual medley this time around. Whether Phelps will swim the 400 IM in London has been one of swimming’s great mysteries for the last year or so.
Ryan Seacrest, on his radio show, asked Phelps about the event and got a great non-answer: “I have had a lot of history with that event and who knows? I have to see what happens here over the next couple weeks and if it’s something I can do at a high level, then possibly.”
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