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Is College Swimming Championship Season in Jeopardy as COVID Cases Rise?
After 2021 concluded with a Short Course World Championships marred by COVID-19, the new year has already seen the surging pandemic affect numerous competitions. Thanks to the more contagious Omicron variant that has made COVID cases in the United States and globally rise quickly, at least four college dual meets scheduled for this weekend have already been called off. The first TYR Pro Swim Series meet of 2022, scheduled for January 12-15 in Knoxville, Tenn., was canceled as USA Swimming sought to “prioritize the health and safety of the athletes, staff and event volunteers.”
It’s not March 2020, when the beginning of the pandemic saw the world essentially shut down in a matter of days, but the string of cancellations is both disappointing and ominous. And if the current trends continue, the conference championship meets in February and NCAA Championships in March could be in danger.
Swimming is certainly not alone among sports that have COVID wreaking havoc on planned competitions. Among the most recent pandemic-related news, this week’s U.S. Olympic Speedskating Trials will be held with no fans in attendance, while the National Hockey League withdrew its players from next month’s Winter Olympics because of COVID concerns. Game schedules for college basketball are in constant flux as teams are forced to pause their season with too many players in COVID protocols.
In swimming, absolutely no one is happy about the postponements and cancellations. Swimmers want to be able to practice and compete, and coaches want to see their athletes finish their seasons at their best without significant training interruptions. Family and friends want to see their loved ones have the opportunity to race at their conference meets and potentially national meets.
Even swimming writers hate to see cancellations; there is no cheering in the press box during competition, but everyone at Swimming World is rooting hard for as normal of a college swimming championship season as possible after the 2020 NCAAs were canceled and the 2021 meet was closed to all non-participants for social distancing purposes.
Last year’s circumstances were not ideal, but at least the season concluded. One year earlier in 2020, swimming fans never got to see Abbey Weitzeil finish off her college career for Cal or watch the anticipated Maggie Mac Neil vs. Louise Hansson vs. Erika Brown showdown in the 100 fly at NCAAs. Short course stars like Beata Nelson and Coleman Stewart did not get one last shot at records in the 25-yard pool.
And most significantly, 2020 was utterly heartbreaking for the seniors slated to swim at NCAAs who instead saw their swimming careers end with a press release. While the NCAA promised an extra year of eligibility to all swimmers who competed during the 2020-21 season, no such promise was made for winter 2020 athletes. So unless a swimmer had professional aspirations, that was it.
Obviously, cancellation is the worst-case scenario for conference meets and NCAAs this year, and hopefully it does not come to that. It’s still the beginning of January, and trends from overseas show that with Omicron, case numbers tend to rise sharply and peak quickly before falling, so hopefully this spike will start to abate by next month. Missing training time or even dual meets is not ideal, but every swimmer would prefer that to having their championship season derailed, either by a canceled meet or a positive test.
Some coaches planned contingencies in case the 2021 NCAA Championships were canceled to give their swimmers a championship meet, and some may have to think back to those old plans just in case. But in the meantime, the entire swimming community is crossing its fingers that this ongoing COVID surge will have calmed down enough by February and March to allow the exciting finale of conference championship meets and NCAAs to take place with as little disruption from the pandemic as possible.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
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