So I read over at my favorite swimming news site, http://www.theswimmerscircle.com/, that Hungary just pre-selected 12 people for its 2012 Olympic team. My first thought was, "oh well, who cares about Hungary?". Then I realized that it's pretty crazy to have selected your Olympic squad more than twelve months out. I mean, who do they think they are? USA Swimming picking it's World Championship team?
I guess it's fair to say that there is almost zero chance of any Hungarian beating out Laszlo Cseh for any of his events over the next year. Similarly, Katinka Hosszu and Evelyn Verraszto have a pretty solid stranglehold on the women's 200 IM. But then, why pick them so far ahead of time? I can see the argument that you want to give swimmers time to prepare, and that Hungary may not have enough legitimate Olympic swimmers to hold a trials meet in the style that larger countries do. Why not wait a bit longer to pick people based off times?
It's also quite possible that the team caterer for Hungary is extremely anal and needed to know 13 months ahead of time how many swimmers he had to prepare goulash for. Mmmmm, goulash!
This may be off-topic but I see meat..... but what are the chunks?
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