The International Swimming Coaches’ Association (ISCA) has planned a parallel meet for the 2023 US Open Swimming Championships at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The meet will run from November 29-December 2 and is being called the ISCA Open.
This is one of several meetcaps that have emerged attempting to close the gap between the approximately 800 registration spots that were open for the long course US Open and the higher-than-that demand for access to the meet in the pre-Olympic year.
USA Swimming sent out a statement to coaches on Thursday regarding the new meet:
“As many of you know, the 2023 Toyota U.S. Open reached the athlete cap in three days. Thanks to Virginia Swimming and the International Swim Coaches Association, we now have another long course competition where athletes can qualify for next summer’s Olympic Team Trials in Indianapolis and the World Aquatics Championships – Doha 2024. The ISCA Open at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, will be held November 29-December 2, following the same event order as the Toyota U.S. Open. Lynchburg is within driving distance of Greensboro and has been approved by World Aquatics for athletes to achieve A and B Swimming Qualifying Standards for the Doha World Championships. You can find entry information and qualifying standards here.”
USA Swimming says that the meet filled in three days, though some coaches reported that they were blocked out of the meet sooner than that.
Lynchburg, Virginia, is about a 2 hour drive from Greensboro, which is being touted as a positive for the meet as organizers say many hopeful attendees had already booked flights into Greensboro.
The Greensboro airport has significantly more flights than either the Lynchburg airport or the Richmond airport, which is also about 2 hours away; the DC airports are about 3 hours away. The Raleigh-Durham airport, which has roughly 10x the flights as Greensboro, is about 3 hours from Lynchburg as well.
USA Swimming says that World Aquatics has approved the meet at Liberty as a qualifier for the 2024 World Aquatics Championships (though not the Paris 2024 Olympic Games). The US Open is an official qualifying event for both meets.
The Lynchburg meet will use Futures standards for entries, and no entry cap has yet been announced. The slower entry standards mean that many more athletes are eligible for the meet.
2023 FUTURES TIME STANDARDS
College coaches have asked for the meet to be approved as an NCAA recognized meet along with events like the Pan American Games, the US Open, and the 2024 World Championships. That status would allow athletes to use times swum at this meet for NCAA qualifying.
That conversation is significant because of two changes this year. One is the NCAA resuming long course conversion for NCAA Championship qualifying, and the other being NCAA rules forbidding NCAA bona fide competition from including collegiate and non-collegiate swimmers in the same competition.
Another meet designed to help deal with US Open overflow, the Almost Heaven Invitational at West Virginia University, was set up as a college-only long course meet because of those same issues, expecting that they wouldn’t be able to get an NCAA approval waiver in time. Because it is only college teams, it does not need special permission to count for NCAA qualifying (though the conversion factors seem unfavorable for NCAA qualifying anyway).
Liberty’s pool, opened in 2017, features a 50 meter x 25 yard competition pool with seating capacity for 1,414 on three sides of the pool. The pool has faced several issues since opening, including diving platforms that were mis-engineered and fell onto the pool deck, and several timing issues.
Issues with the pool’s timing system began at the 2018 ISCA Junior National Cup, where several times, including National Age Group Records, had to be adjusted after it was discovered that 2 of the 3 microphones in the Daktronics starter systems were miswired. Daktronics said at the time that they believed the issue to be isolated, but did not elaborate on how they could be sure.
Then, when Liberty hosted the 2019 CCSA Conference Championship meet (which they ultimately won on the women’s side), the meet had several issues: including relay takeover pad malfunctions (which resulted in a DQ’ed 800 free relay that was eventually overturned), and issues that led to a number of lengthy delays at the meet, and even some reswims.
How can I find info on this meet, I have a swimmer who I would like to get entered?
Hope they set up the timing system right this time
I bet Jerry Jr. will show up, just to watch
I know this is nitpicking the article some but it mentions Greensboro airport being significantly bigger than Richmond and Raleigh having 10x. If people are flying, Greensboro has 1.5M passengers per year, Richmond has 4.0M, and Raleigh is 11M. Richmond is still a far drive after flying in, but it a decent size airport.
https://x.com/jakeshell/status/1722962990599725465?s=46&t=nqaG9ZaSOVddTnqDot1Fmw
Hi Jake, the article mentions the new timing system.
Will update the location of where the diving platform debris landed. Thanks for that detail.
Why there and not the Downtown Charlotte pool?? A proven pool closer and run by a competent organization.
The Mecklenburg Aquatic Center has very little seating compared to newer pools.
OK but how many people are actually coming to /watch/ a meet like this? Plus UltraSwim packed the charlotte pool for years, and produced some incredibly fast swims…
Fans? Very few. Parents? A lot.
But as you say, MCAC has decent seating. 1,000 is plenty fine for a pool that’s not hosting Nationals or NCAAs on a regular basis. I think we’ve gotta be careful expecting every pool to seat 2,000. With where the sport is at right now, I’d rather have one or two that seat 5,000 (with a good view of the competition course) every year for NCAAs than try and drag every other pool from 1,000 to 2,000 seats. There is huge demand for NCAA Championship tickets right now – I think once that’s met, then it will help pull up the rest of the events.
That’s what worked for college volleyball and college basketball,… Read more »
“Decent seating” and MCAC probably shouldn’t be used in the same sentence.
Very true. Even after the renovations a few years ago. Very disappointing
MCAC already leased for that weekend. Always is
Recruiting for Liberty U women’s team on display at this meet. Look for them to be in the Top 10
No offense to the coaching staff, but this will likely never happen. Just like a school like BYU, there is a limited pool of athletes who want the kind of campus culture that is present at Liberty. If you are not religious, it’s probably not a school you would enjoy. On the other hand, large universities that have top swim programs typically have offerings for religious and non-religious students. Religious students can join campus ministry groups, bible studies, etc., and non-religious students don’t have to be confronted with religion at all. (I say all of this as a religious student who attended a big state school and have a very fulfilling spiritual life while in college.)
This is too well spoken and level headed for the internet. Get out of here with that
Plus a school with a history of Title IX failures related to the protection of Female athletes…
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/05/12/liberty-university-partially-settles-title-ix-lawsuit
Times will be 5% percent faster because God willed it… or the timing system is still, well fraudulent.
Swum meets there each of the past two summers and noticed no timing issues, swimmers got faster later in the season with tech suits on at both meets. Aware of the issues that were present in the past but they seem to be resolved.