East is Beast, But West is Best at US Winter Juniors

2022 WINTER JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS – EAST

• December 7-10, 2022
• Locations
  • East: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina
  • West: Texas Swim Center, Austin, Texas
• Full Results – East
• Full Results – West

The most inflammatory and controversial question that was asked about last week’s Winter Junior Championships wasn’t whether Daniel Diehl should go to college or turn pro, they weren’t about whether Maximus Williamson‘s new training is working, it wasn’t even about the Sandpiper girls and whether they’re too good for Juniors.

No, as is so often the case, tribalism ruled the day. The statement that got the most people fired up was about which meet was faster: East or West.

While the question itself is a little silly and a little fun, it is sort of important as a measure of the geographic shift of swimming power in the country. As Michael Hamann explored earlier this year, only two athletes from the 2022 World Championship team grew up in California, which is a remarkable shift from prior generations.

But how far has that shift gone, and is that shift riding the top of the wave, or is it an entire wave?

One data point, at least, shows that West is still best, at least in junior short course swimming.

SwimSwam data guru Barry Revzin scored out the meet using the following criteria:

• Top 16
• Traditional NCAA Championship scoring (20-17-16 in the A final, 9-7-6 in the B final)
• Using finals times only
• Double points for relays

And here are the results, if we pretend that the two meets were each a team in a virtual affair.

+------+------+--------+
| rank | team | score  |
+------+------+--------+
|  1   | west | 3979.5 |
|  2   | east | 3150.5 |
+------+------+--------+

So as you can see, there still seems to be a pretty heavy lean to the West.

In anticipation of a lot of “whatabouts” in the comments, the following things are true:

• While the geographical split makes sense visually, there are probably more swimmers zoned to the West meet than the East meet
• The West meet was very far from some portions of the West zone
• The East meet was very far from some portions of the East zone
• NCAP, the biggest club in the country, hosted its own mid-season invite
• NCAP is still a very good and very deep club, but doesn’t have the superstars like it sometimes has in the past (Katie Ledecky, Tom Dolan, Cassidy Bayer, Ed Moses, Roque Santos, Mike Barrowman) so less of a factor than in other years
• But still a factor
• California is hosting a Sectionals meet the weekend after Winter Juniors
• Summer McIntosh is Canadian but training in Florida
• Lydia Jacoby is in college (but in the same hemi-nation that she grew up in, West)
• Sandpipers are using cheatcodes

It’s still an interesting comparison between the two.

See daily combined top 8s (thanks to Anne Lepesant and Annika Johnson):

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

Mythical “combined” Winter Junior National Champions (Individual):

Bella Sims won 7 mythical national titles. Katie Grimes won 5 Sandpipers in total won 13. Maximus Williamson and Thomas Heilman each won 3. West swimmers won 17, East swimmers won 14.

Mythical “combined” Winter Junior National Champions (Team):

+------+---------------------+-------+
| rank |         team        | score |
+------+---------------------+-------+
|  1   | Carmel Swim Club-IN | 569.0 |
|  2   |       SAND-CA       | 554.5 |
|  3   |        LAC-NT       | 396.0 |
|  4   |  Sarasota Sharks-FL | 308.5 |
|  5   |       ROSE-CA       | 296.0 |
|  6   |        MVN-CA       | 291.0 |
|  7   |      SwimMAC-NC     | 235.0 |
|  8   |      Bolles-FL      | 202.0 |
|  9   |       NTRO-ST       | 193.5 |
|  10  |        NEP-AZ       | 183.0 |
+------+---------------------+-------+