2020 Tokyo Olympian Emma Weyant has entered the transfer portal. She swam her freshman year with the University of Virginia, and has three more years of eligibility left.
NOTE: A swimmer being in the transfer portal does not mean that they HAVE to transfer to another school, it only means that they have opened up communication with different schools and coaches.
At the 2022 NCAAs, Weyant finished second in the 500 free, fourth in the 400 IM, and 20th in the 1650 free, scoring 32 individual points to help Virginia win their second consecutive national title. She also anchored UVA’s second-place 800 free relay in a time of 1:44.80. She set best times in the 500 free and 400 IM, and had a huge nearly three-second drop in the 500 free this year with her best time going from 4:38.39 to 4:34.99 in the span of a season.
Weyant was originally slated to compete for Virginia in the 2020-21 season, but chose to stay at home and train with her club team, the Sarasota Sharks in Florida, due to the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although Weyant is a multi-point scorer for the Cavaliers, her strength lies mainly in long course. This is evident through her performances at recent international meets, where she took silver in the 400 IM at the 2020 Olympics and bronze in the same event at the 2022 World Championships. At NCAAs this year, she still scored the sixth-most points on her team, which is stacked with short course talent.
UVA Top Individual Scorers, 2022 NCAA Championships:
- Kate Douglass/Alex Walsh — 60 points
- Gretchen Walsh — 54 points
- Ella Nelson — 42 points
- Reilly Tiltmann — 37 points
- Emma Weyant — 32 points
- Alexis Wenger — 23 points
- Maddie Donohoe/Anna Keating — 15 points
- Abby Harter — 12 points
Despite being stronger in long course, Weyant’s loss (if she were to make the decision to transfer) would hurt the Cavaliers tremendously. She’s one of the team’s top mid-distance freestylers and is the highest-ranked 500 freestyler in the entire NCAA that will be returning to compete in the 2022-23 season. This is significant, considering that mid-distance and distance freestyle is the discipline that UVA scored the least in at NCAAs last year. In addition, she also was a contributor to UVA’s incredible depth in the 400 IM alongside Ella Nelson and Alex Walsh.
UVA Scoring Distribution, 2022 NCAAs (Individual Events Only):
- Sprint Free: 60 points
- Mid-Distance/Distance Free: 41 points
- Backstroke: 45 points
- Breaststroke: 72.5 points
- Butterfly: 49 points
- IM: 88 points
Weyant’s entrance in the transfer portal comes after the May 1 deadline for all fall and winter sports. She told SwimSwam that she is not exactly sure what her plans are going to be, but that she looks to compete this fall.
Florida is where home is.
boyfriend theory confirmed
Wen Gators?
Rumor has it she is going to notre dame
It’s a great academic school but Why would she go to a school that is not focused on swim with no Olympic caliber swimmers? Do they train LC?
If she wants to go to Florida, there could be one potential snag. She has an NIL/sponsorship deal with Arena. The question would be how Arena would feel about one of its athletes leaving an Arena school or a Speedo one, in which she’d be wearing Speedo (not Arena) at any televised collegiate swim meet.
With NIL being so new to college athletics, we’re in some uncharted waters here.
(I’m pretty sure Ragan Smith has a Soeedo deal, but she was committed to and signed with a non-Speedo school long before NIL was allowed.)
To answer your question that doesn’t matter at all.
It just means the school won’t be able to leverage who is on their team when they are making a suit deal in the future.
Pretty sure Florida is an Arena team now.
dude. NIL cant restrict what schools someone can and cant go to. Look at david curtiss. Wore arena all year as a tyr sponsored athlete. if a company could restrict a student athletes school choice because of a swimsuit, then NIL wouldnt be a thing.
From Florida, great mid-distance swimmer, better at LCM than SCY, had the Governor of Florida say she was a national champion in an event she did not touch first in, and boyfriend is at Florida….biggest bet she’s going to go to Boston College with Arckey as the new HC and sister will go there too
Is this what Brayden meant by Virginia at UV Arlington stransfering to the SouthEastern Conference?
Guess he
Guess he has awesome source
What lol
I’ve thought about this long and hard for the past few days and I have come to the conclusion that Emma should transfer to Indiana University to swim for the GOAT Coach, Ray Looze, and the Indiana Hoosiers!
No you haven’t been thinking about it indiana fanboy/girl
havent met a single person speak positively or ray looze lol