Major Reclassifications Set Up Big Georgia High School Swimming Showdowns

The 2024-2025 Georgia High School swimming & diving season is about a month out from its state championship meets, which will look very different this year after the announcement of realignments at the beginning of the school year. That includes the state championship winning teams from the state’s two largest classifications both moving to new levels and the elimination of a division.

Previously, Georgia’s high school athletics was split into eight classifications, but for this year that was condensed to seven – an opposite trend to what is happening across the country.

In swimming & diving, specifically, there will now be just three state championship meets at each level: 6A, 4A-5A, and 1A-3A, reduced from the previous four-champion system.

While it’s not uncommon to see high school state champions move up a classification, often a newer high school with a growing student body, it’s rare to see state champions move to a smaller classification.

This unique condensing of the organization’s 457 high schools, though, has led to the boys 7A Champions from Walton High School to move to class 6A, and the 6A champions from Johns Creek to move to Class 5A.

The 2024 boys state champions were Walton (7A), Johns Creek (6A), Chattahoochee (4A-5A) and Wesleyan (1A-3A); Walton, Johns Creek, and Wesleyan are all two-time defending state champions, while Chattahoochee has won five of the last six titles.

That sets up a big showdown in the 4A-5A title race between two schools that are boosted by the presence of nationally-known club teams: Chattahoochee is home to Chattahoochee Gold, while Johns Creek is home to a site of the SwimAtlanta program.

On the girls side, the 2024 champions were Brookwood (7A), Lassiter (6A), Westminster (4A-5A) and Wesleyan (1A-3A). Wesleyan’s girls, like their boys, are two-time defending champions, while Westminster has won six of the last seven titles in the 4A-5A classification.

On the girls’ side, Brookwood, the state’s largest high school with 4,518 schools, will similarly be pushed down to the new 6A classification, while Lassiter will move to 5A and Westminster moves down to 3A. That creates a big clash in the 1A-3A meet, for the state’s smallest schools, between two private school powerhouses in the north Atlanta suburbs.