2023 U.S. Open
- November 29 – December 2, 2023
- Greensboro, N.C.
- Greensboro Aquatic Center
- LCM (50 meters)
Swim teams across the country are clamoring for a high-level long course competition to attend at year’s end after the U.S. Open reached its entry cap within two and a half hours.
The event, scheduled for November 29 through December 2 in Greensboro, N.C., typically attracts some of the country’s best as a mid-season semi-taper meet, but it also serves as an end-of-calendar-year-target for some bigger clubs that have a large group of athletes qualified.
USA Swimming’s meet information document says that the meet “may be capped at approximately 800 swimmers”—last year’s edition had fewer than 550 athletes.
It’s also worth noting that members of the current U.S. National Team and Junior National Team, along with foreign swimmers who have achieved a World Aquatics ‘A’ cut, are exempt and able to enter the meet after the cap has been reached.
For international athletes, the meet has been approved by World Aquatics to serve as an official qualifier for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Entry to the meet officially opened on October 10 and closes on November 21 (exempt swimmers could enter one week earlier on October 3).
USA Swimming Rule 207.2 says that all members who achieve the qualifying standards will be eligible to participate and does not mention a capacity limit: “All USA Swimming member athletes who have achieved the qualifying time standards for one or more specific events are eligible to participate.”
TIME STANDARDS
The U.S. Open has been held at the Greensboro Aquatic Center dating back to 2021, with 2020 being contested as a multi-site event due to COVID-19 restrictions, and in 2019, the event was hosted in Atlanta.
The Winter Junior Championships will run the following week, December 6-9, in short course yards, with the East edition to be held in Columbus, Ohio, while the West Championships will run from Westmont, Ill.
Another meet running around the same time is the NCAP Invitational, scheduled for December 7-10, but that will also be in short course yards.
This is a premier meet to make Trial Cuts. Why not add a B flight? Let the swimmers at this level swim, that’s all they want. Come on USA Swimming?!?
How will this affect Sun Yang’s legacy?
In an olympic year, the priority for this type of meet should be to allow people to qualify for trials so that they can train right up to it in June, and the US can showcase its best talent. This meet should’ve only had lcm cuts, as someone with an underwaters-driven 1:44 scy 200 backstroke probably has other meets they can go to, and achieving an elite lcm time standard is not on their radar.
Meet filled up by the time I tried signing up. Pretty disappointed as someone who has OT cuts and was looking forward to using the meet as my midseason taper. Knoxville it is, I guess
This is great for the sport of swimming. The quantity of fast swimmers is increasing, which will push colleges to take swimming programs seriously.
Why?
College teams don’t have their better meets till at least november. Lots of missed opportunities.
Cuts weren’t fast enough if that’s the case. Or they should have done LC entry times only.
I wonder how much the NCAA deciding to allow LCM times to qualify for NCAA Championships affected this. College teams that would have gone to yards meets but instead sent the whole team to this LCM meet.
Makes sense to go for many, right?.. Enter with yards times, get Trials Cuts and qualify for NCAAs in the same meet.
jackpot- I’m thinking this is why the meet filled up so quickly. Wonder if they should have done an east/west approach for this meet….
They allowed people on national team to enter in the meet early. Along with anyone else on that team.
Which is unfair to teams who don’t have national team member who could be faster or more deserving of the spot than someone who is just on the team with a national team member. USA swimming needs to do a better job on meets this high caliber. Not giving people advantages to get into meets over others.
Allowing the whole team to enter early is a bit much. I don’t think USA Swimming thought OME through enough. They should have a separate login for USA Team members so they could enter early without having the entire rest of their team be eligible to enter early too.
National Team entries don’t count against the cap number. I think a good solution may be creating 2-sites in an Olympic year.
Bingo. And many of the college teams have national teamers on them – which means EVERYONE on their team got to enter one week ahead of the crowd (teammates get the special early entry exemption too).
Teammates don’t get to enter with the exemption after a meet fills however. Only the national teamer gets in that way.
I would guess that most college swimmers are better SCY than LCM and it would be easier to qualify in SCY vs LCM.