With more than 550 swimmers from 27 countries converging for one meet in Florida, the Union Americana de Natacion (UANA) Swimming Cup will have one of the biggest international age group meets in the country.
The first edition of the UANA Swimming Cup will be held in Coral Springs, Fla., at the Coral Springs Athletic Complex from Jan. 19-21, 2018.
The Americas are organized with the organization across four zones.
The UANA Cup format will be a dual meet between North America/Central America/The Caribbean and South America.
The countries participating are Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Turks and Caicos, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and St. Vincent.
The Swimming Cup event is also unique in that it will also serve as a qualifying event for the Youth Olympic Games, Pan American Games, and FINA World Championships, giving the best junior swimmers in the Americas a chance to gain further international competition experience.
Started in 1948, the UANA is “a sports organization with the purpose of organizing, supervising and controlling, in the Western Hemisphere, the amateur aquatics activities of Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Synchronized Swimming, Master and Open Water Swimming.”
The meet will also be broken down into three different age groups — 11-12, 13-14 and 15-17 for both male and female meets.
Each country will be limited to a maximum of six male and six female swimmers per age group, leaving the possibility of a maximum 36 for the meet. Swimmers have no limitations in number of events but only two swimmers from each country can score.
Nine points will be given for each first place, followed by 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for the rest of the top eight, respectively.
