2024 Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Trials
Sidney Pickrem gave up the 400 IM at this week’s Canadian Olympic Trials, dropped a significant amount of time in the 200 IM, finished 10th all-time in that event, and made her mark in the ring in one of the following events: The most crowded event ahead of this summer’s Olympics.
Pickrem, 26, swam 2:07.68 on Sunday evening in Toronto. This was 0.88 seconds off his personal best time at the world championships in February, and was a breakthrough after being stuck at 2:08 for five years since first hitting the mark in early 2019.
The difference may be that she finally lets go of the 400 IM, an event where she was a medal contender with her best time in 2017 (4:32.88) but has fallen short since then.
She swam the event at the 2019, 2021 and 2023 Canadian Trials, and has competed at the 2019 SEC Championships, 2021 World Championships, 2022 World Short Channel Swimming Championships, 2023 World Championships, and more in between. I scratched it many times.
Although she was entered in the pre-race meet, she did not swim this week’s 400 IM in Toronto.
Split comparison:
What’s interesting about the split comparison is that her breaststroke has dropped significantly, even though her other three legs remain about the same. The breaststroker is Pickrem’s best single stroke, giving her a huge advantage over her Canadian teammate Summer McIntosh. McIntosh narrowly split that leg in 38.16 seconds, and her pick rem briefly took the lead heading into the length of the freestyle.
What’s interesting is that Pickrem fell just short of her best in both breaststroke races this week, coming in just short in the 100 with a 1:07.27 (personal best is 1:07.20) and then even further behind with a 2:23.79 (best is 2:22.63) in the 200. This means she’s found a way to dramatically improve her IM breaststroke without sacrificing her other strokes, but that improvement hasn’t been reflected in the same way in her individual breaststroke legs.
Women’s 200IM Top 12 All-Time Competitors
Katinka Hoss, Hungary – 2:06.12 (2014) Ariana Kukos, USA – 2:06.15 (2009) Siobhan O’Connor, UK – 2:06.88 (2016) Summer McIntosh, Canada – 2:06.89 (2023) Kayleigh McCune, Australia – 2:06.99 (2024) Stephanie Rice, Australia – 2:07.03 (2009) Kate Douglas, USA – 2:07.05 (2024) Alex Walsh, USA – 2:07.13 (2022) Shiwen Ye, China – 2:07.57 (2012) Sidney Pickrem, Canada – 2:07.68 (2024) Yu Yuting, China – 2:07.75 (2023) Yui Ohashi, Japan – 2:07.91 (2017)
Bold = Predicted medal candidates for the 2024 Paris Olympics
