Bob Bowman and the Arizona State Sun Devils will add a pair of recruits with international experience midway through the coming season: Spain’s Joan Casanovas Skoubo and Finland’s Silja Känsäkoski.
Bowman, the longtime coach of Olympic hero Michael Phelps, who is now the head coach at Arizona State University, announced the moves in a tweet Tuesday:
Excited to welcome Joan Casanovas @jskoubo and Silja Kansakoski to the Sun Devil Family! See you in January. #ForksUp
— Bob Bowman (@coach_bowman) September 6, 2016
Casanovas has been one of Spain’s top young talents for several years now. He won 200 IM silver and 400 IM bronze at the 2013 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival, and more recently raced at the European Games and Junior World Championships in 2015.
The 20-year-old Spanish national brings a whole lot of versatility to the Sun Devil lineup. Per SwimRankings.net, here are his top times, all in long course meters (LCM):
- 200 free: 1:50.05
- 400 free: 3:52.19
- 800 free: 8:09.67
- 200 IM: 2:02.66
- 400 IM: 4:21.26
- 100 back: 57.13
Känsäkoski, meanwhile, will help out the women’s breaststroke corps in Tempe, coming in with international experience for Finland at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games as well as the 2016 European Championships.
The 1997-born swimmer finished as high as 5th at the Youth Olympic Games, taking that spot in the 100 breast. She also qualified to compete for Finland at this spring’s European Championships and made semifinals of the 100 breast.
Her top times, per SwimRankings.net, also in long course meters (LCM):
- 100 breast: 1:08.82
- 200 breast: 2:33.66
- 50 breast: 31.88
The two should join the ASU program at the semester break, meaning they will likely be eligible to compete at the Pac-12 and NCAA Championships.
Why didn’t this end up happening? Joan is still at D2
Ummmm isn’t it an NCAA violation for the coach to announce VERBAL commitments?!?!
Swimfan – if they were only verbal commitments, it would be a violation, but these appear to be official signees. Once an athlete has signed on with an NLI or other official document, a coach and program can publicize their commitment.
May appear to be official since Bob posted on Twitter but I have also heard at least one of the two has not signed anything and only verbally committed.
I also heard it was an NCAA violation to eat waffles on a Tuesday without green pants on. But I could be wrong.
Why can’t they swim right away? If not, they are oldish and want have much eligibility left!?
I think your eligibility starts when you start competing and you have 5 years to make 4 years. So if they are international students they haven’t used any NCAA eligibility. I don’t think age factors into it.
But why wouldn’t they start right away competing. i think the clock starts when they graduate high school…then they have 5 years to get 4 years of eligibility in, so if they wait til they are 21, not much left on the clock
NCAA eligibility has nothing to do with age. The clock doesn’t start until you enroll as a full time student at a university.
It all really depends on the country, its school system, military service requirement, etc. The clock starts ticking at different times for different countries. Every country is documented in the NCAA guide for internationals available on the NCAA website. The age issue is the reason why some US parents see fault with the recruiting of internationals. When some internationals can swim well into age 26 or 27, is it fair really? This is particulary true on the men’s side where physical maturity in terms of muscle mass is often only reached in the mid- to late-20s. Most swimmers will graduate at 22. Even in their senior year, they are still younger than some international freshman.
When my international swimmer started… Read more »
Weirdo – typically foreign students don’t arrive the States until the beginning of the calendar year. Sometimes they just train the first spring and don’t start their eligibility until the next fall, but often they’ll start up with second semester meets.
Ok, thanks Jared. Be interested in how much eligibility they will have? I would guess 3, maybe only 2?