Next weekend’s marquee matchup between the University of Texas, Ohio State, and the University of Kentucky has been canceled. After over half of the college swimming meets involving Division I teams were canceled this weekend, this is the first announced cancellation for next weekend’s meets.
While Texas has not commented on the decision, Ohio State and Kentucky put out identical statements saying that “the decision was made based on student-athlete welfare in a time of escalating COVID-19 cases nationally.”
The meet was due to be one of the highlights of the semester in the run-up to conference championship events nationally. It included the defending women’s conference champions from the Big Ten (Ohio State), SEC (Kentucky), and Big 12 (Texas), in addition to the defending NCAA men’s champions Texas.
The Ohio State men, while they were 3rd at last year’s Big Ten Championships, were 7th at NCAAs, and Kentucky placed 30th.
Ohio State was due to host the meet in Columbus.
Franklin County, Ohio, where Columbus is located, has experienced 2,603 new cases of COVID-19 daily over the last week, though data over the last few days show that cases there may be peaking.
Ohio State’s 66,000+ students make up about 5% of Franklin County’s population. Classes begin on January 10, and while Ohio State University hasn’t put in place remote learning for the new semester, they have released new guidelines including weekly testing for students living on campus and for members of social sororities and fraternities, regardless of vaccination status, plus those individuals who are not vaccinated.
Upcoming Meets:
- Ohio State’s next meet will be January 21-22 at Notre Dame’s Shamrock Invitational, followed by a big rivalry meet against Michigan on January 28.
- The Texas men will host Big-12 opponents TCU on January 21 and 22 before finishing the season on February 4 at SMU
- The Texas women won’t race TCU, but will travel to North Carolina to face two big-name opponents in NC State and UNC on January 28 and 29. The matchup with NC State will pit the #2 and #3 teams from last year’s NCAA Championship meet against each other.
- Kentucky is next scheduled to race in a rivalry meet against Louisville on January 22 before finishing their regular season against Cincinnati on January 28.
If they keep the basketball game for this Sunday, it shows the hypocrisy.
It’s all about the Benjamins. Swim teams cancelling over abundance of caution looking forward to being healthy for conference meet.
Basketball, gymnastics, bowl games move on with packed stands
Follow the money and you’ll always find the answe
How many of these teams are on a full pause in activity? I’m merely curious. I realize Basketball games are being PPD’ed too, but seems like there might be more urgency behind playing those games whereas with swim it’s trying to protect the team, the training and prep heading into a Championship season with the hope things are trending in the right direction.
We haven’t heard of any new incidents of full-pauses for teams. It doesn’t mean they’re not happening, but based on social media posts, specifically the response to the 75 with fins, it seems that most teams are still competing.
Just give us one meet please