USA Swimming annouced Olympians Michael Phelps, Eric Shanteau and Chloe Sutton, and other members of the U.S. National Swim Team, will compete at the Columbus Grand Prix, April 1-3 in Columbus, Ohio. 

The meet will take place at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion at The Ohio State University, and is the fifth stop of the eight-meet USA Swimming Grand Prix Series that awards the overall winner $20,000. A leaderboard can be found online here.

Swimnetwork will webcast the meet live, and provide on-demand videos of finals races.  Finals start at 6 p.m. ET and prelims begin at 9 a.m. ET.

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The third and final night of the Columbus Grand Prix included some big swims by Elizabeth Pelton (a pool record), Cesar Cielo, Nick Thoman and Jasmine Tosky.  Pelton's race was the race of the swim meet (according to Rowdy Gaines).  And Tosky deserves a ton of credit for her races: six top-3 places, including three wins.

Two More Pool Records Fall at Columbus Grand Prix .

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On the second night of the Columbus Grand Prix, it was all about rising swimmers.  Chloe Sutton added a 400 free win (to the 200 free and 800 free she won last night) and Dagny Knutson had a near comeback in the 400 IM. On the men's side Tyler Clary (swimming in a brief) held off North Baltimore’s Todd Patrick.  Coming off his 400 IM NCAA title last weekend (same pool, yards not meters), Clary looked pretty good.  After tonight's race race Clary said “I want to make sure everybody knows that I’m still around.”  I think they do.

Elizabeth Pelton , 16, won the 100 back.  Afterward she explained her future plans: “Definitely the 200 IM and both backstrokes, then maybe the 200 free or 100 fly, I don’t know…” Solid.

Nick Thoman  picked up another backstroke win too (over Denmark’s Mathias Gydesen – the NCAA champ).  Thoman's time tonight was the fifth best in the world.  Let’s dub him “American Backstroker of 2010.” Any objections?

Two Pool Records Fall on Day Two of Columbus Grand Prix .

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Night 1 of the Columbus Grand Prix  is in the books.  How about Chloe Sutton?  The Unstoppable Female Freestyler. She won the 800 free and the 200 free.  After her sceond win she said, “I broke two finally! ... I knew I could do it.”  Wild prediction #1: Chloe Sutton is going to win $20,000 at the end of this Grand Prix season.  Hopefully we’ll see her at the Charlotte Ultraswim in a month.

Some other observations from Night 1: Eric Shanteau lost the 100m breaststroke by about a half-second to Marcus Titus.  Not quite as close as his 200m silver medal race in Rome last summer (he lost that one by .01 seconds), but it was vaguely reminiscent of that race... The 200 free saw another win by Peter Vanderkaay.  He’s pretty much the ultimate workhorse of U.S. swimming.  The man just churns out 200s.  Wild prediction #2: Vanderkaay wins an 800 free relay gold this summer at the Pan Pacific Championships.  Ok, ok, that wasn’t very bold.  But can he improve his individual bronze from Beijing and win 200 free gold?  Not bad for the opening night of the meet.  More tomorrow.

Chloe Sutton Wins Double Gold .

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Breaking News : USA Swimming just announced a partnership with Universal Sports to broadcast the Grand Prix Series on TV.  The Columbus Grand Prix will be live at 6pm ET on Universal Sports Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Plus later in the year you'll be able to catch the Charlotte Ultraswim Grand Prix and the Santa Clara International Grand Prix.  Of course, you can still always watch live webcasts (of prelims and finals) and on-demand videos right here on Swimnetwork.

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Swimnetwork's Senior Analyst Mike Gustafson previews the 2010 Columbus Grand Prix, and while he's disappointed that Michael Phelps won't be there, he tells us what to look for:

Tyler Clary , Eric Shanteau and Alex Vanderkaay will go head-to-head-to head in the 200 IM.  Plus there could be a great faceoff between Grand Prix Series leader Chloe Sutton and 2008 Olympian Kate Ziegler.  And - of course - there's the sprint freestyle, the 50 free.  Watch out for Brazil's sprint superstar Cesar Cielo and American Cullen Jones.

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Note: Swimnetwork learned on Wednesday, March 30 that Michael Phelps would not be competing in Columbus.

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