30 Potomac Valley swimmers qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials

Katie Ledecky swims to a new world record in the women's 400-meter freestyle final at last summer's U.S. Nationals.

With just less than 500 days until the 2016 Rio Olympics, speculation over next next summer’s Games has already begun to ramp up. According to Infostrada’s latest virtual medal projection, the United States is projected to top the medal table in Rio, with 47 golds and 97 total medals. Half of those projected medals are expected to be won in either athletics or swimming, with Katie Ledecky and Missy Franklin expected to take home three golds apiece.

But before either Ledecky, Franklin, Michael Phelps — projected to win gold in both butterfly events — can aim for Olympic glory, the arguably more trying competition awaits those U.S. athletes with five-ringed dreams: U.S. Olympic Trials.

Including Ledecky, the Potomac Valley has already qualified 30 athletes for the 2016 qualifying meet in all 26 individual pool swimming events scheduled to be contested at the upcoming Olympic Games. In the table below, swimmers are listed by event in which they are qualified. Note, not all of the times are best times for the athlete but represent the best time swam within the qualifying period that began on July 30, 2014, which includes last summer’s U.S. senior and junior national championships in Irvine, Calif., Pan Pacific Championships in Australia and Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Honolulu.

All Star Aquatics' Hannah Lindsey reacts when she sees her time in the 200-meter backstroke at NCSA Junior Nationals. It was her first Trials cut. (Bryan Flaherty/For The Washington Post)

From USA Swimming’s times database, the individuals with the most Trials cuts so far from the D.C. metro area so far are Andrew Seliskar (8) and Katie Ledecky (5). The events with most qualifiers are currently the men’s 1,500 freestyle (5) and women’s 200 backstroke and men’s 100 and 200 breaststroke events (4), but that could change in the coming months as club programs make the shift from short-course yards to long-course meters.

Last week’s NCSA Spring Junior Nationals, which ran long-course finals, yielded a number of qualifying times for Trials, with two new Potomac Valley swimmers booking their tickets to Omaha, Neb. Machine Aquatics’ James Murphy and All Star Aquatics’ Hannah Lindsey both reached their first cuts with 15 months to go until Trials.

50 freestyle

100 freestyle

200 freestyle

400 freestyle

Women’s 800 freestyle

Men’s 1,500 freestyle

100 backstroke

200 backstroke

100 breaststroke

200 breaststroke

100 butterfly

200 butterfly

200 individual medley

400 individual medley

*No longer with club