The International Swimming League (ISL) announced Monday that its Season 3 playoffs will take place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, with matches running November 11-28.
Unlike in its first two seasons, there will be an extended layoff before the league final, which will take place in January 2022.
View this post on Instagram
In Season 1, the Grand Final took place about a month after the semi-final matches wrapped up, while in Season 2, which was competed under a COVID-restricted bubble in Budapest, the final was almost immediate due to the circumstances.
The previously-announced regular season for the ISL’s third campaign will run from August 26-September 26 in Naples, Italy, with an additional wildcard-type match September 29-30 where the four lowest-ranked clubs will have an opportunity to join the top six in the playoffs.
This will be followed by the “Play-off phase,” where the top eight clubs will compete for four spots in the ISL Grand Final in January.
‘’We are very pleased to have come to an in-principle agreement with the city of Eindhoven for the hosting of the ISL Season 3 Play-off phase, and we will now work closely with them to finalise the formal contract,” said ISL Founder and President Konstantin Grigorishin.
‘’We are very happy that Eindhoven is ready to join Naples, Budapest, Dallas, Las Vegas, London and others on the list of exciting cities the ISL has partnered with. The Dutch are knowledgeable and passionate swimming fans, who I am sure will be delighted to see local stars such as Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Kira Toussaint, Femke Heemskerk and Arno Kamminga in action.’’
Competition will be held at Pieter van den Hoogenband Stadium, named after the famed Dutch freestyle legend, which has held many high-level national meets over the years.
“We are looking forward to welcoming all swimmers, their supervisors and teams in Eindhoven in November,” Stijn Steenbakkers, Eindhoven councilor for sport and economy, said. “Especially after all the beautiful swimming performances we were able to see in Tokyo. An international major event like the ISL is interesting for Eindhoven – the swimming capital of the Netherlands.
“The many big names in swimming will be an inspiration for the youth and regular users of the Pieter van den Hoogenband Stadium and people will have the opportunity to enjoy this top competition up close.”
Steenbakkers added that the official contract with the ISL has yet to be signed, but appears to be imminent in the coming weeks after their “summer recess.”
Per the ISL, 15 Dutch athletes will compete in Season 3 of the ISL, including incoming Aqua Centurion rookie Kamminga, who won a pair of silver medals at the recent Tokyo Olympic Games in the men’s 100 and 200 breaststroke.
“They will put the global spotlight on the city of Eindhoven as swimming fans around the world tune in on television, through streaming platforms and on social media to watch their favourite stars,’’ Grigorishin said f the Dutch athletes.
“The ISL will bring to Eindhoven an incredible ‘sportainment’ show that will make for an amazing live experience for sports fans – the likes of which they will have not seen before at a professional swimming competition.’’
The ISL says it is now working to finalize its host city selection process for the league final, with locations in Asia, Europe and North America all still in play.
So is this the correct scenario?
ISL starts August 26.
ISL Playoffs in November.
World SC Champs in December 16 – 21
ISL Finals in January 2022
NCAA’s USA in March 2022
LC World Champs in May 2022
Am I leaving anything major out other than each country’s trials for SC & LC Worlds?
That is a pretty ambitious schedule. Could be a tricky tangle to say the least.
Who’s gonna be doing ISL and NCAA’s?
Commonwealth games in July/August 2022
European Championships in August 2022
The issue of attracting consistent sponsors to pay salaries with the inconsistent buyin of the star swimmers still remains. This league will only have the pocketbooks to remain in existence if the stars swim every year, for the same teams so they can develop a following beyond the users of this site. I’ve posted this before, but again nobody, especially those that only know swimming through Espn or the local news, wants to or cares to see professional events won by less than the top talent, if the top talent is fine with only peaking each summer and not showing up. Obviously that is their right and I’m not in their shoes to tell them otherwise, but the league cannot… Read more »
Interestang
In British news, Tom Dean is unlikely to be in ISL this year either, he said in an interview yesterday “I won’t be in the pool anytime soon”
Also apparently Duncan Scott had some Muscle strain in training before the Men’s Medley at the olympics which might explain why he had a relatively slow split.
King Dean will come for any challenge
Can we have a post rating team’s post draft pick ups. Some teams seem to have done poorly (Cali), Left huge holes in their squad (London) and some seem to have become decent contenders this year compared to their past efforts (Aqua). There are also some very good swimmers that have been left in the pool which are interesting to say the least.
London squad selection baffles me tbh, they didn’t retain James Guy in the draft despite being in desperate need of a flyer and picked Murdoch as a breaststroker when Stubblety – Cook was still available.
Guy can only swim the final and Stubblety-Cook has dreadful turns/ starts to be fair in them cases but they have a massive hole in men’s fly – Lanza and Mildred (Maybe Carter) – Will ruin chances in medly, Women’s 200 Fly + Maybe IM, And without Peaty, the 4 breastrokers they have picked are not good enough (If Prigoda is in the same form as he was in the Olympics although is good SC) yet Balandin is in the draft pool still.
The teams still aren’t, for the most part, hyper-sophisticated in their selections. There’s still a lot of “home town” or “pick the coach’s athletes” stuff that goes on.
On top of that, the teams know a lot more than we do about who is going to be available for the whole season or not. Lots of Australians won’t be. Peaty is a great example of that. They probably knew he was doing the dance show, hence why he wasn’t retained (other than being put to fan vote). Given roster limits, athletes who aren’t available lose value very, very quickly.
Would love to. But it’s basically impossible to analyze because the teams and leagues and athletes are so tight-lipped with information about availability.
Will most swimmers taper for the final next January?
The World Championships is in May and before that there will be trials for each country.
I could see a lot of drop tapers for maybe a day or two but couldn’t imagine they’d risk their Worlds tapers by going for a full rest in January.
They swim all their meets with that little rest! I think they will rest at least a week! Plenty of time before Trials which we don’t know when or where it is?!?
So obviously most of the stars weren’t going to attend this fall. Not sure why they didn’t see this coming?