UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A total of 13 Penn State men’s and women’s swimmers will be looking to trade their Blue and White for the Red White and Blue, as they are slated to compete in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials June 26 to July 3 in the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
The event serves as the sole selection meet for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team competing at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and will feature approximately 1,800 swimmers. NBC and NBCSN will broadcast 16 hours of live coverage of the event, while preliminaries will be streamed live on the NBC Sports Extra app. The 13 Nittany Lions will be looking to join teammates Shane Ryan and John Nunez in Rio, as Ryan and Nunez have already qualified for the games with Ireland and the Dominican Republic, respectively.
Representing the Penn State women will be a group of seven: Tommie Dillione, Casey Francis, Kaitlin Jones, Ally McHugh, Katie Rowe, Katie Saloky and Katelyn Sowinski. On the men’s side, it will be Gunther Cassell, Mike Kwasnick, Tim Maurer, Andy Schuehler, Matt Stasiunas and Ryan O’Neill.
The women’s team has had at least one U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier in each trials since 1984, and at least seven in each since 2000. The men have been represented in each since 2004.
Five of the Penn State women -- Francis, Jones, Saloky, Sowinski and Rowe -- competed at the 2016 NCAA Championships. Sowinski will lead all Penn State swimmers by competing in three different events, the 400-meter freestyle (Monday), 200 butterfly (Wednesday) and 800 free (Friday). Francis will join Sowinski in the 400 free and also compete in the 400 IM (Sunday) with McHugh, and McHugh will also race in the 200 IM with Rowe (Tuesday). Additionally, Dillione will swim in the 200 free (Tuesday) and Jones and Saloky will conclude preliminary action Saturday in the 50 free.
Four of the six Penn State men will compete on the opening day Sunday, as Stasiunas will lead all Penn Staters into the pool in the 400 free. The women’s 400 IM with Francis and McHugh will immediately follow, and then three will swim in the 100 breaststroke: Kwasnik, Cassell and Schueler. Monday will feature Stasiunas and O’Neill in the 200 free and Maurer in the 100 backstroke. Cassell and Schueler are slated to compete in the 200 breast Wednesday before Mauer concludes preliminary action Thursday in the 200 IM.Preliminaries will start each morning at 11 a.m. Eastern, while finals will begin at 7:45 p.m. Eastern.