USA Swimming 18-Under Winter Championships

By Reach for the Wall Staff

Leading into, and resulting from the USA Swimming annual convention held (virtually) September 24-26, USAS released the 2020 events calendar. Highlights from this are details of a three-month virtual race leaderboard, a multi-site Toyota U.S. Open event and a decentralized 2020 18 & Under Winter Championships.

We are excited about the 18 & Under Winter Championship which won’t require travelling to a central location, rather can be held here in PVS across multiple days and sites (subject to locality restrictions). With the competitive qualifying times (which are similar to the 2019 Sectional qualifying times), the level of competition within the local meets should be fierce. We’ve listed some of the rules and bolded a few of them that are unique to this format & provide some flexibility to the athletes and teams:

This competition is open to all current Premium or Outreach USA Swimming member-athletes who are 18 or under as of December 1, 2020, and who have achieved the published time standards.

• Any USA Swimming member club may host a meet to be included in the competition provided it can have their meet officially sanctioned through their LSC.
• Each host may limit the number of competitors or offer multiple sessions in order to comply with Local, State, and Federal requirements.
• All meets will be held in Short Course Yards (SCY) pools.
• Events that may be included in the competition are the 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1650 Yard Freestyle, 100 and 200 Yard Butterfly, 100 and 200 Yard Backstroke, 100 and 200 Yard Breaststroke, and 200 and 400 Yard Individual Medley.
• A swimmer may compete in as many events as he/she desires during the December 1-13 time period, and may swim the same event multiple times, however only the swimmer’s top time for an event will be included in the results.
• Additionally, only a swimmer’s top scoring six events will be included in the results and in the calculations for high point and team scoring. Any additional event results submitted will be compiled into separate “time trials” results.
• There will be no delineated age groups other than 18-Under. Additional age groups and/or events may be offered locally but will not be included in the Championship results.
• Individual hosts may opt to allow athletes with slower time standards to compete in the meet based on local needs (i.e. to fill heats, additional entry fees, etc.). However, only the results for athletes that have the qualifying standards will be included in the Championship results.

Results must be submitted to the LSC Times Chair no later than 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time on Sunday, December 13th. Where applicable, altitude adjustments may be used for qualification into the Championships,
however they cannot be used to adjust results for the competition.

In case you need a reminder of how soon December 1-13 will arrive, USA Swimming has posted a ‘countdown clock’ on the event page:

https://www.usaswimming.org/event/2020/12/01/default-calendar/18-under-winter-championships

This is certainly exciting for the swimming community & provides some welcomed motivation for the teams and swimmers that may be holding ‘club only’ meets leading into December. Let us know if your team is planning a sanctioned meet in the coming months, we’d love to publish the details and results: operations@reachforthewall.org

Meet specific Content and Graphics included in this post courtesy of USA Swimming