Olympic Swimming: Gators Make Strong Showing In Trials

As their name might suggest, the Florida Gators are good in the water. This past week at the Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha Nebraska the Gators, past present and future, stole the show. 23 former and current Gators swimmers competed in Omaha this week along with six Florida signees. Former Gator great Elizabeth Beisel said at a press conference prior to the trials “For us as swimmers, the Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport… We’re going to do everything we can to get there.” Get there is exactly what they did.

That feeling you get when you become a 3X Olympian! Congrats again to #GatorGreat @ebeisel34! #GatorsAlways pic.twitter.com/XFgmZQ6z08

— Gators Olympics (@GatorsOlympics) June 28, 2016

As of Friday afternoon, 12 Gators have punched their tickets to Rio. Connor Dwyer, who took home the 2012 gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay, will compete in the 200m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle relay and 400m freestyle. Caleb Dressel qualified for his first Olympics in the 100m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay. Elizabeth Beisel, who captured two medals at the London games, qualified for the 400m individual medley for which she took home the silver medal in 2012. Finally, 11 time Olympic medalist (including five gold), Ryan Lochte will swim in the 4x200m freestyle relay and will swim in the finals of the 200m individual medley tonight.

First the 400m free, now the 200m free.

Conor Dwyer's headed to #Rio2016 in TWO events! #GatorsAlways #SwimTrials16 pic.twitter.com/bg3idxHcFP

— Gator Swimming (@GatorsSwimDv) June 29, 2016

Those are just the Gators that will be representing the United States in the Olympics. Eight more international Gators will be representing their home countries in Rio this summer. Dan Wallace will represent Great Britain in the 4×200m freestyle relay. Hrafnhildur (Hilda) Lúthersdóttir of Iceland will swim in the 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke and 200m individual medley. Italian Mitch D’Arrigo will be a member of the 4x200m freestyle relay team. Polish teammates Jan Świtkowski and Pawel Werner will swim the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 4x200m freestyle relay respectively. New Zelander Corey Main will compete in the 100m backstroke. South African Sebastien Rousseay will swim the 400m individual medley for his country and finally Eduardo Solaeche-Gomez of Spain will compete for the 200m individual medley.

The Gators are primed for another hardware heavy trip to the Summer Olympics.