LSU Women Scratch Both Medley Relays And 800 Free Relay At NCAA Championships

2023 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Despite qualifying for all five relays, the LSU women will only swim the 200 and 400 free relays at the 2023 NCAA championships. LSU does not appear on the MeetMobile heat sheets for the 200 medley and 800 free relays on day one and is also missing from the entries for the 400 medley relay on day three.

“We’re focusing our efforts on where we can maximize point production,” LSU head coach Rick Bishop told SwimSwam.

LSU’s absence from the 200 medley relay means that we will not see Maggie MacNeil get to race a 50 back (or any backstroke at all, as a matter of fact). At SECs, she clocked a 22.52 50 back to become the fastest ever in the event. In addition, she also split a 48.76 100 fly on LSU’s 400 medley relay, clocking the second-fastest 100 fly relay performance ever.

Logistically, LSU’s scratches make sense. Their 200 medley relay would have been seeded 22nd (1:36.59), their 400 medley relay would have been seeded 20th (3:32.08), and their 800 free relay would have been seeded 15th (7:02.12), meaning that their chances of scoring high in all three relays are minimal.

In addition, several of LSU’s relay swimmers from SECs were not able to make the trip to NCAAs because of the four relay-only swimmer limit. Those relay swimmers include Hannah Womer, the team’s breaststroker for the medley relays, as well as 800 free relay members Chloe Cheng and Reagan Osborne.

Northwestern is also missing from the heat sheets for the 800 free relay, despite being on the original list of eligible relays. They had been seeded 17th with a time of 7:04.80.

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DP Spellman
1 year ago

The NCAA rules on relay only swimmers at championships is somewhat to blame here too.

ACC fan
1 year ago

They missed a good opportunity to practice the blocks, the walls and get some speed. Dumb decision IMO

Snarky
1 year ago

Someone didn’t want to swim relays.

zzzzzzzz
1 year ago

You’re telling me an extra 50 on the first day is going to wear them out for the rest of the meet?

Octavio Gupta
1 year ago

Sort of lame. Good relay splits can boost confidence, and the opportunity is now taken away. This decision would make more sense if relays were still prelim/finals, but it’s timed finals now. These are finely tuned athletes in their primes, I don’t think a couple more swims is going to negatively impact their performance. If so, they may be in the wrong sport.

bubo
1 year ago

idk i feel like if you already know you won’t be scoring many points it’s just as well to go ahead and let your swimmers swim. If they’re trying to rest MacNeil and she ends up underperforming for whatever reason, it’ll be a shame that other swimmers on the team won’t be getting the chance to get more racing in at the championship level. It’s going to be much harder to get back to this point without MM on the roster next year

maybe there are funding reasons that they feel they need to maximize points by making sure MM can perform to her full potential

JimSwim22
Reply to  Yanyan Li
1 year ago

I would have them. Racing 50s today has no possible effect on the rest of the meet except for having fun, getting on the blocks and cutting it loose. Maybe you even score some points. Relay scoring is slower at the meet than seeing most years.

JimSwim22
Reply to  Yanyan Li
1 year ago

But I’m the guy who had his swimmers race at least once every day at championship meets. Relay, time trial, something, just to get the blood flowing. At yNats I had a swinger who won 2 events on day 2 and day 4. She always time trialed something to see where she would have placed on her off days

Xman
Reply to  JimSwim22
1 year ago

I get the idea but these are swimmers racing at the peak of their careers. They probably did multiple swims at YNats and championships growing up.

Fact is they don’t need to race this relay just to finish well out of scoring. From a sportsmanship stand point this isn’t the meet to do that in,

Shaddy419
1 year ago

Did Dak Prescott’s girlfriend(I don’t remember what her name was) qualify and should we expect to see him in the stands on the broadcast?

Big poppa
Reply to  Shaddy419
1 year ago

No she wasn’t even close

ct swim fan
Reply to  Shaddy419
1 year ago

Jadyn Jannasch

LOLLSU
Reply to  Shaddy419
1 year ago

I assume she’s more focused on instagram than swimming

Swimmom
Reply to  LOLLSU
1 year ago

Wow. Throwing shade on a college student because she has an social media presence and is dating someone famous????? Unless you are on the team you probably have no idea off she is more focused on social media than swimming. It is very possible to do both right??????

asu to the ship
Reply to  Swimmom
1 year ago

bold of you to assume this is derogatory lol

JM01
Reply to  Shaddy419
1 year ago

She didn’t even make the SEC team

About Yanyan Li

Yanyan Li

Although Yanyan wasn't the greatest competitive swimmer, she learned more about the sport of swimming by being her high school swim team's manager for four years. She eventually ventured into the realm of writing and joined SwimSwam in January 2022, where she hopes to contribute to and learn more about …

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