After canceling four straight YMCA National Championship meets because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, YMCA of the USA announced this week that they will resume hosting national championships in spring of 2022.
The 2022 YMCA Short Course National Championships meet will run from March 28-April 1 at the Greensboro Aquatics Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.
That will be the first official short course championship for the YMCA since April of 2019, where more than 1,400 swimmers competed. The YMCA also holds a summer long course meet, though it’s more lightly-attended. No details for a 2022 long course meet have been announced.
The 2021 short course cancellation, which came just a few weeks into what would become a global pandemic, was the first time the meet wasn’t being held since 1947. The YMCA first started hosting national championship meets in 1923.
While not an official championship sanctioned or supported by the YMCA of the USA, earlier this year, several YMCAs from around the country came together to host the “2021 YMCA Festival.” That event was essentially a combined results competition from many meets around the country over a period of 6 weeks. In total, 119 teams and 1,232 athletes participated.
Y-Spartaquatics from South Carolina won the girls’ meet, while the Greater Somerset YMCA in New Jersey won the boys’ meet.
