The 2020 Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials will be hosted simultaneously at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Center from March 30th-April 5th, 2020.
Significantly, with many Canadians now training in the United States in the NCAA system, that meet will start just 2 days after the conclusion of the NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships (and 9 days after the women’s championship). In 2016, there was a 10-day gap after the men’s meet and a 17-day gap after the women’s meet.
The meet, which Swimming Canada is calling “fully integrated” (meaning that the Olympic Trials and Paralympic Trials will take place in the same sessions with interspersed races.
Aside from expanding from a 6-day meet to a 7-day meet, the event will have one other significant new feature: there will be a junior final on the Olympic program side. A-finals will have the 10 fastest swimmers from prelims, while B-finals will have the next-10-fastest swimmers born in the year 2001 or earlier (which can include up to 4 international athletes). Then there will be a “junior final” which will include the fastest 10 Canadian swimmers from finals, born between 2002 and 2006, who are not already in the A final. Note that no junior-aged swimmers can qualify for the B final. Swimming Canada says that among the purposes for this is to create opportunities for young swimmers who are competing for spots on the 2020 Jr. Pan Pacs team.
“This is fantastic for young Canadian athletes and their coaches to target coming to the Trials,” Atkinson said. “It will give more junior swimmers exposure to racing in the finals, which is great for the development of our athletes.”
The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre has become the crowned-jewel of Canadian swimming. Built to host the 2015 Pan American Games, it includes 2 permanent 50-meter pools, a 25-meter diving well, and 6000 seats of total spectator seating (3,500 on the competition pool).
Canadian Olympic Trials Standards:
trying to find tickets is like pulling teeth… you wonder why attendance is low?