By Jared Anderson on SwimSwam
National record-holder Etiene Medeiros will not contest the 100 backstroke at Brazil’s spring national championship meet, the highlight of the meet’s psych sheets released this week.
Medeiros will still be plenty busy, swimming the 50 free, 100 free, 100 fly and 50 backstroke. She swam both sprint freestyles and the 100 back at the Olympics last summer. Her best finish was an 8th-place finish in the 50 free final.
The Maria Lenk Trophy, the name of Brazil’s national championship meet, will feature the smallest field in the new millennium. Only 297 athletes were announced on the qualifying lists. According to BestSwim.br, that’s the smallest field since the year 2000.
It will also be a field missing many of Brazil’s top Olympic swimmers. Thiago Pereira has retired after more than a decade competing among the world’s best IMers. Jessica Cavalheiro and Tales Cerdeira are also retired. Joao de Lucca and Nicolas Oliveira are both training in the United States and won’t compete at Maria Lenk. And Larissa Oliveira was injured in a car crash and underwent surgery earlier this spring.
While the Maria Lenk meet is also often known for bringing in a handful of international swimmers to spice up the battle between clubs, the only foreign athletes this year will come from Argentina. That’s probably an effect of most European countries running their own national championship and Worlds selection meets this month.
The Maria Lenk Trophy will serve as Brazil’s selection meet for both the World Championships and the Junior World Championships, per BestSwim.br.
One more notable entry on psych sheets: Cesar Cielo will be competing after missing what would have been his third Olympics last summer. He’ll swim the 50 free, 100 free and 50 fly.
You can find the full psych sheets (in their original Portuguese) here.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: No 100 Back For Medeiros On Brazil’s Maria Lenk Psych Sheets