2021 SC Worlds Times Can Be Used For NCAA Championship Qualification

2021 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Thursday, December 16th – Tuesday, December 21st
• Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• SCM (25m)
• Prize Money
• Meet Site
• Entries

At this month’s 2021 FINA Short Course World Championships in Abu Dhabi, we should see times that qualify athletes for the 2022 NCAA Championships after conversion.

In the Division I 2021-2022 Qualifying Standards released earlier this year, as in previous years, the NCAA included a “Conversions” section that detailed the steps needed to convert times from 25-meters to 25-yards. The procedure is as follows:

1. Convert the achieved 25-meter time into seconds
2. Multiply the transformed time in seconds by the appropriate conversion factor (see below), out to five decimal places
3. Drop, without rounding, all units smaller than a hundredth of a second
4. Transform the resulting value into minutes and seconds to obtain the converted 25-yard time

The Short Course Conversion Factors, which are the same conversion standards from last season, are shown here:

So, for example, to achieve a Men’s “A” cut in the 200-yard butterfly, a time of 1:40.44, an athlete would need to swim a 1:50.87 in the meter equivalent. Find the conversions laid out below:

1. Convert the achieved 25-meter time into seconds
   1. 1:50.87 → 110.87 seconds
2. Multiply the transformed time in seconds by the appropriate conversion factor, out to five decimal places
   1. 110.87 * .906 = 100.44822 seconds
3. Drop, without rounding, all units smaller than a hundredth of a second
   1. 100.44822 → 100.44
4. Transform the resulting value into minutes and seconds to obtain the converted 25-yard time
   1. 100.44 → 1:40.44

Swimmers are seeded based on their converted time – among the prominent examples is Mallory Comerford, whose time at the 2018 Short Course World Championships, when converted, made her the top seed at the 2019 NCAA Championships.

We will see some of the same swimmers competing in the Short Course World Championships at the upcoming Division I NCAA Championships in Atlanta, Georgia. There are many swimmers competing in Abu Dhabi who also competed in the 2021 Division I NCAA Championships this past March in Greensboro, North Carolina.

In the women’s field, Virginia Cavalier Kate Douglass will represent Team USA and compete in the 200 IM. This past March, she won gold in the 50-yard freestyle and two silvers in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly. Fellow Team USA member Katharine Berkoff, who claimed first in the 100-yard backstroke at the NCAA Championships, will compete in the 100-meter equivalent later this December.

Tennessee’s Mona McSharry will be representing her home country Ireland in the 100-meter IM as well as the 50-, 100- and 200-meter breaststroke. At this past NCAA Championships, she swam to a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke and third-place in the 200-yard breaststroke.

Maggie MacNeil will represent Canada in the 50- and 100-meter backstroke, as well as the 50- and 100-meter butterfly; the Michigan Wolverine claimed second in the 50-yard freestyle and first in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly, all three of which were close races against Virginia’s Kate Douglass.

On the men’s side, for Team USA, Trenton Julian will compete in the 200-meter butterfly, having claimed second for Cal in the 200-yard equivalent this past March. Texas’ Carson Foster will compete in the 200- and 400-meter IM, having finished 4th in the 200-yard IM and 2nd in the 400-yard IM at the 2021 NCAA Championships. He will be joined in the IM events by Florida Gator Kieran Smith, who will also swim the 200- and 400-meter freestyle events.

Virginia Tech can boast two international swimmers in Abu Dhabi who also swam well in Greensboro: Antani Ivanov will represent Bulgaria in all three butterfly events, and Youssef Ramadan will represent Egypt in the 100-meter freestyle and butterfly. Both swimmers made a splash this past March, helping guide Virginia Tech to an 11th place finish.

While it’s safe to assume that most swimmers competing at SC Worlds (and attaining these lofty standards) won’t have a problem getting inside the NCAA cutline in a few months time, it’s still something extra to keep an eye on in the coming days in Abu Dhabi.