U.S. Open Could Be Anytime In November/December Under Rule Change Proposal

USA Swimming‘s House of Delegates will be meeting virtually for this year’s convention – but the annual slate of rule changes remains on track.

USA Swimming has published a list of 29 proposed rule changes to be discussed this week. We’ve pulled out some of the more notable. You can see the full list here.

Defining Virtual Meets

The coronavirus pandemic has made the concept of virtual meets a much more concrete and necessary plan. Rule proposal R-2 would shore up some of the details of virtual meets, including:

• defining a “virtual” meet as “a competition held at multiple venues.”
• requiring the same order of events for all teams competing in a virtual meet
• requiring all venues to complete competition within a ten-day period

Allowing U.S. Open To Be In November or December

Typically, USA Swimming has run its winter national-level meet in early December, directly after Thanksgiving. But rule change proposals R-7 and R-8 open up that meet to run anywhere in a two-month period.

The rule changes adjust to USA Swimming‘s new branding, which changed the meet from “Winter Nationals” to “U.S. Open.” R-8 also takes out reference to a “short course yards” national championship – Winter Nationals were typically held in yards except for Olympic years, but along with the name change, the event might be trending more towards long course meters.

The scheduling flexibility also allows USA Swimming to better work around the International Swimming League, which will run through half of November this year with a December league finale event still to be announced.

Removing “Long Course” Modifier From Trials Class Meets

Rule change proposal R-10 would include Short Course World Championships along with Long Course World Championships and the Olympic Games as “Trials Class Meets.” The current rules allow USA Swimming to designate selection meets for the Olympics and for the long course World Championships. (Typically, those meets are Olympic Trials and U.S. Nationals). The rule change merely removes the “long course” descriptor from the rule.

That would mean USA Swimming would have the option to designate a specific meet as a selection meet for the Short Course World Championships team – it could be U.S. Nationals, or a separate selection meet established later. The rule doesn’t mandate a selection meet, though, so USA Swimming could continue to hand-select Short Course Worlds rosters from current U.S. National Teamers like they typically do.

New LSC Vote Reduced From Two-Thirds To 50%

Rule change proposal R-21 would make it easier for members to create a new LSC from within an existing LSC. LSCs are the regional organizing bodies for swimming within USA Swimming. If members of one LSC want to break off and form a new LSC, rules currently require the LSC’s House of Delegates to vote in a two-thirds majority before the proposed new LSC can be submitted to USA Swimming‘s Rules & Regulations Committee.

Proposal R-21 would reduce that requirement to a 50% vote of an LSC’s House of Delegates.