Aimee Canny Forgoes Freestyle, Will Focus on 200 IM, 400 IM, 200 Breast at NCAA Championships

2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2026
• McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
• Defending Champions: Virginia (5x)
• Championship Central
• Pre-Selection Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Video

University of Virginia senior Aimee Canny will race the 200 IM, 400 IM, and 200 breaststroke at the NCAA Championships, notably forgoing the 200 and 500 freestyles, two races that she has competed in at these championships over the last two seasons.

Canny may have given us a bit of insight into this NCAA lineup at ACCs when she raced the 200 breast and 400 IM, finishing 2nd in the 200 breast (2:02.97) and 3rd in the 400 IM (4:02.35), setting lifetime bests in both. She also swam the 500, finishing 2nd (4:34.46), sitting just two tenths off of her #5 nationally ranked time of 4:34.26 from October.

Her return to the 200 breast is not all that shocking, having finished 7th at the NCAA Championships last season and being the only individual championships final she made that week. This lineup will mark the 3rd different NCAA Championship lineup of her career and the first time she has raced the 200 IM since 2023, when she finished 19th in 1:56.10.

Canny’s absence in the 200 free is also a little surprising, considering the event has been a mainstay for her over the last two NCAA Championships, including a 4th-place finish in 2024 (1:42.33) and a 9th-place performance last season (1:42.57). She only recently set her best time of 1:41.81 as the leadoff leg of Virginia’s 800 free relay at ACCs, with that time ranking her 10th in a loaded 200 free. That ranking fails to carry much weight when she sits #2 in the 200 breast, #6 in the 400 IM, and #8 in the 200 IM on the pre-scratch psych sheets.

The 500 would have been a good choice for an event, as she ranks 5th fastest this season, but it falls directly after the 200 breast on day three, which, as mentioned, she is among the favorites to win. Historically, Canny has not seen a lot of success at NCAAs in the 500, in 2024, she added nearly three seconds from her season best of 4:36.26 to finish 17th in 4:39.11. 2025 was a similar story, with Canny adding over five and a half seconds from her season best of 4:35.43 finishing 38th in 4:41.96.

This meet will be her 400 IM debut at the NCAA Championships and will feature one of the more loaded event fields of the week, with top seed Bella Sims (Michigan) and a pair of Stanford Cardinal swimmers in 2nd and 3rd, Lucy Bell and Caroline Bricker. She joins fellow Cavaliers Katie Grimes (4th), Leah Hayes (9th), and Sophia Umstead (12th) in the top 12 of the event.

Canny’s best shot at her first individual NCAA title will very likely come down to the 200 breast, as inner-conference foe Lucy Bell holds the top seed by just three tenths in 2:02.67, as the two ACC powerhouses are the only two in the event who have been under 2:05 this season. This is another prime example of Virginia of turning their women’s team into well equipped breaststrokers.