Chase Kalisz leads a host of Olympic medalists and world champions at a USA Swimming Pro Series meet in Atlanta starting Thursday and airing live on NBCSN, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app.
The meet is the second of six in the Pro Series leading to the U.S. Championships in Irvine, Calif., in July.
The U.S. Championships are a qualifier for this year’s major international meet — the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo in August. Nationals and Pan Pacs would also usually serve as the two qualifiers for the 2019 World Championships in South Korea, the biggest meet between now and the 2020 Olympics, though USA Swimming hasn’t posted those qualifying procedures yet.
Back to Atlanta. Kalisz, who swept the individual medleys at the 2017 Worlds, is joined in this week’s field by U.S. Olympic gold medalists Ryan Murphy and Nathan Adrian.
International stars entered include Katie Ledecky‘s biggest recent rivals — Italian Federica Pellegrini, Swede Sarah Sjöström and Chinese Li Bingjie — though Ledecky, a Stanford sophomore, is missing this week’s meet that takes place during the NCAA season.
The full broadcast schedule for finals sessions (all times Eastern):
Thursday
USASwimming.org — 7 p.m.
Friday
NBCSN, NBCSports.com/live, NBC Sports app — 7-8:30 p.m.
Saturday
NBCSN, NBCSports.com/live, NBC Sports app — 7-8:30 p.m.
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