The 27th annual Cary City Invitational swim meet is scheduled for Saturday at the Scottish Hills Recreational Club. Torrey Bussey, a rising junior at Cary High, will miss the summer swimming staple for just the second time in her life.

But she has a good reason.

She’ll be at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Neb., competing in the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials.

“I think it’s a pretty fair trade,” she said.

Bussey is among the contingent of about a half dozen Cary swimmers heading to the Great Plains with the hopes of advancing to this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. Sisters Kelsy and Kirsten Smith, both Athens Drive High graduates; Stephanie Glover, also a former Jaguar; siblings Jon and Melanie Roberts, both Cardinal Gibbons graduates; and Will Dove, a Cary High alum, will also compete in Omaha. Trials begin Sunday and conclude on July 6.

“To go this time is pretty exciting,” said Kelsy Smith, who will swim the 100-meter and 200-meter backstrokes. “We’ve been anticipating it for a while. It’s not like any other swim meet. We’re just going to go and try our best and gain a lot of experience.”

The odds of making it to the Olympics, in just about every sport, are impossibly long. More than 1,000 swimmers are competing for 52 available spots on the Olympic Team (26 men, 26 women).

In each event 200 meters or shorter, the fastest 16 preliminary times will qualify for the semifinals. The top eight times advance to the finals, and the top two finalists go to the Olympics.

In the men’s and women’s 400 freestyle, men’s and women’s 400 individual medley, women’s 800 freestyle and the men’s 1,500 freestyle, the eight best preliminary times move on to the finals. The top two finalists get a spot on the Olympic team.

But no one’s going to Omaha with that on their mind.

“There’s pros out there who have solidified their spots in the top tier, so it’s humbling to be racing people like that,” said Dove, now a rising junior at Auburn University. “But still, anything can happen. Every four years, there’s people you expect to go that don’t and there’s surprises as well. I’ll be happy to compete and hopefully get a second swim. If I can make it back to one of the next rounds I’ll be happy.”

Dove will swim in three events, the 200 freestyle, the 400 freestyle and the 200 butterfly.

Nervewracking as the meet will surely be, Dove is hoping that having a few days in Omaha prior to competition will help him assimilate. He planned to arrive at the site on Thursday with the rest of his Auburn teammates. He said some of them went to a test event at the Qwest Center a few weeks ago and have already scoped out hotels, restaurants and the facilities, putting his mind at ease with regard to all those things before he arrives.

“One of the things we do at big meets at Auburn is we get down three, four days previous to become comfortable,” Dove said. “It seems to be most beneficial to swim when you’re comfortable and relaxed. One thing we do, two, three days before, we get up, suit up and prepare like it’s race day to simulate the actual race.”

Most are relishing the opportunity just to make it to trials.

“I’m just trying to go and have fun,” said Kirsten Smith, who will swim 200 and 400 individual medleys and the 100 and 200 backstrokes. “I’m not trying to think about places or anything. I’m focused on trying to get best times, and I’ll be happy.”

In 2004, Kelsy and Kirsten Smith both met the trials qualifying standards for that year, but they did so about a month after the trials were held. Making it this time, and doing so together ,brings added significance.

“It’ll be easier,” said Kirsten Smith. “She’ll help me take the pressure off and keep me focused and not get so nervous.” What happens if they find themselves next to each other in either backstroke race?

“We’ll both be gunning for each other,” Kelsy Smith said. “We’re competitive with each other, but more so to push each other.”

After trials, they’ll have another year to swim together at the University of Florida. Kelsy is a rising senior on the Gators’ swim team, and Kirsten will be a freshman.

Bussey hit her 100 breaststroke qualifying mark in March at the NSCA Junior National Championships in Orlando. “I looked at the scoreboard in disbelief,” she said. “I thought it said another number. I kind of hesitated. And then I realized it and I was so excited.”

Bussey’s 1:11.95 in the 100 breaststroke is just .64 of a second under the trials cut time. Her seed time is the slowest — a very loose sense of the word in this case — of the 69 swimmers in the event.

But that’s inconsequential.

“I’m going out there with no expectations,” she said. “I’m going to go and give it my best and see what happens. I’m really excited for it. It’s what everyone works for.”

Based solely on seed times, Jon Roberts appears to have the best chance to make it to Beijing. His time of 1:03.27 in the 100 breaststroke is third fastest in the 84-man field. He’s .58 of a second behind second place and about 1.5 seconds out of first, which just happens to be held by Brendan Hansen, the event’s world-record holder and a three-time Olympic medalist in 2004.

But Roberts has gone faster than his seed. At the Japan International Grand Prix last year, Roberts, now a rising senior at the University of Minnesota, finished third in the 100 breaststroke with a time 1:00.82, which was the 10th fastest time in the world last year and the second fastest time logged by an American.

Efforts to reach Roberts were unsuccessful.

While making the Olympic team is the ultimate goal, that is not what the meet is entirely about for the local contingent that will be competing.

“When I made my trial cut, I wasn’t thinking about it,” Kelsy Smith said. “I just wanted to do the best I could. When you’re focused and relaxed, you do your best. We’re going to race the people in our heat and we’ll go on from there.”