The Virginia and Tennessee swimming and diving teams pulled out of a tri-meet with Michigan yesterday after reports of some problems with chemicals in the Michigan pool. Virginia and Tennessee will instead have a last-minute dual meet with each other in Knoxville on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Tennessee’s home pool.
Originally the three teams were to swim in a two-day tri-meet on Friday and Saturday in Ann Arbor, but concerns were raised by the University of Michigan Environment, Health and Safety office.
“Last Thursday (Oct. 10), EHS deemed the pool safe to use and the teams returned to normal training,” Michigan swimming and diving said in a statement. “On Tuesday (Oct. 15), following two independent lab tests, EHS reaffirmed that Canham Natatorium was safe for competition.”
Michigan will swim in an intrasquad meet on Friday at 5 p.m. in Ann Arbor.
This “safety first” message from Tennessee and Virginia is coming at a time of heightened awareness of such issues in domestic and international waters. American distance swimmers Ashley Twichell and Haley Anderson, as well as Canada’s swimmers, pulled out of the World Beach Games set to take place in Qatar this week after water temperatures were seen as high as 30 degrees Celsius. The race still went on as planned with no reported incidents or injuries.
In the preseason CSCAA poll the Tennessee swimming and diving team was ranked 15th on the women’s side and 16th on the men’s side, while the Virginia women are ranked second and the men are fourth.
Last year both Virginia (6th) and Tennessee (8th) placed in the top ten at women’s NCAAs while the Virginia men placed 10th at NCAAs and Tennessee was 11th. Last season, Tennessee won both men’s and women’s matchups with Virginia in Charlottesville.
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