The NCAA Swimming & Diving Committee has approved two additional long course meets as NCAA Championship qualifiers in the long course season: the 2023 Pan American Games and the 2023 World Junior Swimming Championships.
Those meets join three previously approved meets as long course championships outside of bona fide collegiate meets that are allowed to be used for qualifying in the pre-Olympic season, where many athletes are focused on international and long course competition as much as collegiate.
Approved National/International Competition for NCAA Championship Qualifying:
- World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships – September 4-9, 2023, Netanya, Israel
- Pan American Games – October 20 – November 5, 2023, Santiago, Chile
- USA Swimming National Championships (Toyota US Open) – November 29-December 2, Greensboro, North Carolina
- World Aquatics World Swimming Championships – February 2-18, 2023, Doha, Qatar
- USA Diving National Championships – November 29-December 6, 2023, Knoxville, Tennessee
Besides these meets, all in long course, any collegiate meet that otherwise meets the definition of bona fide competition (which has a new list of criteria this year) can be raced long course and used for NCAA Championship qualifying.
The addition of two new meets, in the fall semester, is significant, with many athletes, especially non-Americans, having national team commitments to meet. While the long course qualifying standards are pretty stiff, this gives an opportunity for an athlete going to the Pan American Games in late October, for example, to use that as a fall taper meet and train straight through to the World Championships in February or NCAA Championships in March without having to worry about a short course taper for NCAA qualifying.
- See also: US roster for 2023 Pan American Games
- See also: US roster for 2023 World Junior Championships
Only six members of the American team for World Juniors, which comes before most colleges begin their competitive seasons, will swim in college next season: Diggory Dillingham (USC), Ethan Harrington (Stanford), Caleb Maldari (Florida), Hudson Williams (NC State), Hannah Bellard (Michigan), Jojo Ramey (Florida).
Several members of the Pan American Games team, which begins in late October, will race during the heart of their collegiate seasons – both for the US and for other countries in the Americas.
Below are the long course conversions of the times it took to qualify for last year’s NCAA Championship meet. Read more about the times and the conversion factors here.
LCM CONVERSIONS – NCAA FACTOR FORMULA
Women’s Conversions
| EVENT (SCY) | 2023 INVITE TIME | FACTOR TIME |
| 50 free | 22.15 | 25.14 |
| 100 free | 48.87 | 55.28 |
| 200 free | 1:45.31 | 1:59.13 |
| 500 free | 4:41.09 | 4:10.53 |
| 1650 free | 16:13.73 | 16:28.56 |
| 100 fly | 52.20 | 58.85 |
| 200 fly | 1:55.92 | 2:10.10 |
| 100 back | 52.36 | 1:00.67 |
| 200 back | 1:53.34 | 2:10.73 |
| 100 breast | 59.73 | 1:07.88 |
| 200 breast | 2:09.68 | 2:26.04 |
| 200 IM | 1:56.90 | 2:13.30 |
| 400 IM | 4:11.36 | 4:43.70 |
Men’s Conversions
| EVENT (SCY) | 2023 INVITE TIME | FACTOR TIME |
| 50 free | 19.21 | 22.08 |
| 100 free | 42.32 | 48.48 |
| 200 free | 1:32.85 | 1:46.11 |
| 500 free | 4:14.36 | 3:48.13 |
| 1650 free | 14:53.84 | 15:16.76 |
| 100 fly | 45.57 | 51.90 |
| 200 fly | 1:42.57 | 1:57.09 |
| 100 back | 45.70 | 54.08 |
| 200 back | 1:40.62 | 1:57.13 |
| 100 breast | 51.90 | 59.93 |
| 200 breast | 1:52.94 | 2:10.12 |
| 200 IM | 1:43.14 | 1:58.96 |
| 400 IM | 3:42.99 | 4:14.85 |
Would be interested to see a list of swimmers attending these competitions and the schools and countries they represent.
World juniors is whack for this. None of those kids will have even raced for their colleges yet and they could qualify for NCs. Some won’t even have started at school yet.
Any kid who qualifies at Juniors in September will have to complete first semester with a GPA that meets eiigibility requirements before they attend an NCAAs.
Conversely, Matt Sates was allowed to show up in January, “go to class” for 10 weeks (presumably, we don’t know) before winning NCAAs and immediately dropping out of school before he ever completed a single class.
If we’re passing out awards for “whack,” I’m not giving it to the kid who actually gets a report card.
I bet having this information in advance of naming the Pan Ams team would have changed the number of declined invitations.