Three-time Big Ten scorer Federica Greco will sit out the coming NCAA season in order to focus on qualifying for Italy’s Olympic team in 2020.
Greco would have been a senior this season for the Scarlet Knights. She’s scored at the Big Ten Championships in each of her three collegiate seasons. Last season, she was three one-hundredths out of an NCAA invite in the 100 fly, sitting 40th on the pre-selection psych sheets. Most of line 38 was invited to the NCAA meet.
“It was a scary thought process,” Greco said in Rutgers’ press release on her redshirt season. “I’m really close with my class and couldn’t imagine not graduating with the teammates I’ve been with these last four years. I finally thought, there’s so much more outside of swimming and Rutgers. I need to take this opportunity. It’s a dream to make the Olympics, and I’m really close.”
Greco will remain training at Rutgers this season as she gears up for an Olympic bid, and she does plan to return to Rutgers for her senior season in 2020-2021.
Internationally, Greco finished third in the 100 fly at the Italian Championships last summer and qualified for the World University Games. She finished 10th in prelims and 14th in semifinals of that event at the World University Games in Naples, Italy, and also finished 14th in semifinals of the 50 fly.
Greco’s Top Times
- 100-yard fly: 52.37
- 200-yard fly: 1:57.82
- 200-yard IM: 2:01.18
- 100-meter fly: 59.69
- 200-meter fly: 2:12.61
- 50-meter fly: 26.79
Based on Italy’s recently-announced Olympic qualifying times, Greco will need to improve to 57.5 in the 100 fly by next March’s Italian Championships to make the Olympic team.
Greco is the latest in a long list of Olympic-year redshirts and deferrals:
- Taylor Ruck, Stanford (Canada)
- Olivia Carter, Georgia (USA)
- Ida Hulkko, Florida State (Finland)
- Faith Knelson, Arizona (Canada)
- Mackenzie Padington, Minnesota (Canada)
- Sarah Bacon, Minnesota (USA)
- Kristen Hayden, Minnesota (USA)
- Mabel Zavaros, Florida (Canada)
- Federica Greco, Rutgers (Italy)
- Dean Farris, Harvard (USA)
- Javier Acevedo, Georgia (Canada)
- Giovanni Izzo, NC State (Italy)
- Jarod Arroyo, Arizona State (Puerto Rico)
- Ruslan Gaziev, Ohio State (Canada)
- Mario Koenigsperger, USC (New Zealand)
- Grant House, Arizona State (USA)
- Michael Brinegar, Indiana (USA)
- Andrew Capobianco, Indiana (USA)
- Brandon Loschiavo, Purdue (USA)
- Raphael Marcoux, Harvard (Canada)
Quite a long shot. 57.5 qualifying time. Di Liddo 57.1 and Bianchi 57.5 this year for Italy.
It sounds like she’s dropping time and is in a great place mentally. She has nothing to loose and everything to gain, I am happy the young woman loves swimming again and feels like she can improve.
That’s a big time drop that she needs to have.
yes, that is a stiff time standard! Some of the national federations put out those standards as motivational tools, but put in a little wiggle room for coaches to select swimmers who are close. Don’t know if that is true in the case of Italy, but what the hell, it sounds like she is going to give it her all. She was third in her nation last around…