Brunlehner, Muteti vie for Olympic spot in Bahamas meet

Grand Canyon senior Maria Brunlehner and recent alumnus Emily Muteti will travel with Lopes head coach Steve Schaffer to the Bahamas to compete at the National Swimming Championships from Thursday to Sunday, when the pair will vie for the opportunity to represent Kenya at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Although there will be no live stream, fans may follow along with results on the Meet Mobile app.

This meet offers one last opportunity to earn a Team Kenya universality qualifying spot based on World Aquatics Points. It allows countries without qualification cuts, or swimmers who have hit Olympic "A" or "B" standards, to send one male and one female swimmer to the Olympic Games.

The World Aquatics Points Table allows comparisons of results among different events, assigning point values to swimming performances. More points, typically 1,000 or more, are awarded for world class performances while fewer points are given for slower performances. A specific formula is used to calculate points from times.

Brunlehner leads Kenya with 738 World Aquatics Points while Muteti ranks third with 720, but it will be a highly competitive meet, as Kenyan swimmers Sara Mose and Imara-Bella Thorpe are also in the mix with 721 and 709 points, respectively. All four will swim in the 50- and100-meter freestyle races, in addition to other individual events.

The meet is broken into two daily sessions, beginning at 6 a.m. (Phoenix time) and 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday with rolling start times. There will be no delay of races to allow swimmers who have entered successive and/or multiple events rest time. There are also no scheduled breaks in the meet. Any preliminary event with 10 or fewer entries will automatically become a final to be swum in the afternoon session.

Muteti and Thorpe look to kick things off with the 100-meter butterfly preliminaries on Thursday morning, with event finals scheduled for that same afternoon. If either swimmer posts a time of 1 minute, 1.36 seconds, they will move ahead of Brunlehner in the standings.

All four top swimmers will then compete in the 100-meter freestyle preliminaries on Saturday morning, with event finals to follow that evening. To score more than Brunlehner's leading 738 points, a time of 57.19 or better would be needed.

The 50-meter freestyle preliminaries, featuring all four top swimmers, are scheduled for Sunday morning, with event finals later that same afternoon. Brunlehner earned her 738 World Aquatics Points in this event with a time of 26.12 at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, in February.

For more meet information, click here for the program.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

Brunlehner, Muteti vie for Olympic spot in Bahamas meet

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