Women’s 2026 NCAA Championships: With No ‘B’ Finals, Were Prelims Actually Faster?

2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2026
• McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
• Defending Champions: Virginia (5x)
• Championship Central
• Preview Index
• Psych Sheet
• Live Stream
• Live Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4

One of the biggest and most controversial changes to the 2025-26 NCAA championships were the loss of the ‘B’ finals. With only eight spots now available in each event in the evening, the battle in prelims should be more competitive, but were prelims actually faster than in previous years?

Prelims Time for 8th, 10th, and 16th at NCAA Championships (2021-2026)

The time required to make the ‘A’ final was faster this year than any other in the period 2021-2026 in seven of the 13 events. Three of those were in freestyle (50,100, 200), with one from each of backstroke (200), breaststroke (100), butterfly (100), and IM (400).

The 400 IM was 1.20 seconds faster than last year, which was the fastest time since 2022. The 50 free has been getting faster every year – the time required to make the top eight last week was 0.59 seconds faster than five years ago, 21.44 to 22.03.

There were some events which this year was slower than previous, most notably the 200 fly and 200 IM. Only one of the eight 2025 finalists in the latter swam the event in 2025, with five graduating and two choosing a different day 4 event. The 100 back also saw a step down from the historic prelims in 2025 -10th last year would have been comfortably 8th this year.

Overall the 2025 NCAA championships seems to have been the fastest so far this decade. Using a rudimentary scoring system of 1 point for the top time of the six years, 2 points for the #2 time, 3 points for #3, etc., the 2025 championships comes out with a score of 63, ahead of the 2026 championships with 99. The events in which this year racked up the points were the 200 fly, 200 IM, and 1650 free – in which it was the second-slowest of the 2020s.

The times for the 2025 championships fell outside the top two for any of the 8th-, 10th-, or 16th-place finishers – the 200 breast, in which all three were #4. The 200 breast is an intriguing one, with the fastest time for 8th coming in 2021 and trending slower ever since.

How much of the change is due to swimflation and how much due to the battle for the top eight places is not easy to identify by looking purely at the times.

A better indicator might be the ratio between the times for the three places, and the cutline for that year. That should take into account the general trend of the event – we would expect a faster cutline to translate to a faster set of prelims, while the ratio between the two stays a little more stable year-to-year.

For consistency, we have used the cutline as determined by the old qualification system for 2026

Ratio between Prelims Time for 8th, 10th, 16th vs Cutline (2021-2026)

The cutline ratios paint a different story. Using the same scoring system the 2026 championships move to top spot with 98 points, with the 2021 championships somewhat surprisingly in third with 128. The 2025 championships fall all the way down to last place with 162 points, behind 2024 (124 points), 2022 (145 points), and 2023 (154 points).

Overalls the prelims this year look a little faster than last year, and definitely faster compared to the cutlines (although that comes with significant noise). That may be seen as a positive, but notably heats are not the “product” being sold to broadcasters and casual fans – that is the finals, now with half the swims and potentially more taken out of the swimmers competing.

‘B’ finals seem a popular proposition, and are likely one of the ‘considerations’ that the CSCAA referred to in an Instagram post yesterday – and it doesn’t seem as though the swimming we’d see would be much slower at all.