USA Swimming’s official statistics twitter feed has released a list of the top ten Olympic trial qualifying cities. Austin tops the list with 56 qualifiers, many of them swimmers competing for the University of Texas. Overall the list is dominated by cities with major conference college teams.
These are the top 10 cities for producing Olympic trials qualifiers so far. A lot of fast swimming ahead. #trials16pic.twitter.com/5gmCfe7hvy
— USA Swimming Stats (@USASwimStats) March 12, 2016
One city on the list that doesn’t have a Division 1 major conference team is Charlotte. The North Carolina city made it largely owing to the presence of SwimMAC’s elite team headed by US Olympic coach David Marsh.
The list also gives insight into which major college teams carry large numbers of American swimmers. The University of Tennessee women’s roster has just one foreign born athlete (Kira Toussaint). That helps boost Knoxville to third on the overall list.
Cities with a competitive swimming environment gave a final boost. Although Palo Alto is home to Stanford University, it’s also home to Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics, who had the top team at the most recent West Junior Nationals for both men and women.
The totals should change quite a bit as the final flurry of qualification for Omaha takes place over the next couple months. According to USA Swimming’s latest report, 1577 total swimmers have already qualified. It is likely that the number of total qualifiers will exceed 2000 by the close of the qualifying period.