…Chris DeSantis from The Swim Brief shared a potentially-huge decision from last week’s CSCAA conference in San Antonio regarding NCAA qualification. The idea basically centers around relays, and how they relate to the NCAA qualifier limits. The new proposal would have a set time standard for relays to qualify, and all schools with an individual qualifier would be able to enter a relay, provided it was faster than the standard. Further, relay-only entrants would not be given bonus swims in individual events. This would reshape the college swimming landscape, primarily by eliminating the situation we saw last year in the men’s meet where only 17 or 18 swimmers were invited in each event. Additionally, this would put a renewed emphasis on mid-season meets and conference championship meets, because swimmers wouldn’t be able to count on a relay to skate their way into their individual entries. To read about the full proposal, see Chris’ post…
…South Africa’s Chad le Clos is making sure that his body is fully-acclimated to the European summer, by taking a very early start to his trip to Europe. Le Clos is already on his way to the relative-warmth of the Northern Hemisphere, where he will compete in the Mare Nostrum series and settle in on the old continent…
…The Oceania Swimming Champs began yesterday in Noumea, New Caledonia. This meet, typically dominated by the Australiasns, sees the 14 nations from Oceania, including a team from Hawaii, square-off in a meet for pride in a region that is rising in swimming prowess. Winners thus far include Australia’s Kenneth To in the 200 free (1:50.32), and Papua New Guinea’s Ryan Pini in the men’s 50 fly in 24.41. Among other familiar names to take the medal stand thus far, Australia’s Daniel Lester, who trains at the University of Wisconsin, has a pair of silvers in the 50 (24.45) and 200 (2:02.32) butterflies, while Texas A&M’s Amini Fonua added a bronze in the 50 fly for Tonga. We also had a siting of Brit-turned-Aussie Declan Potts. He was once a huge prospect in British Swimming, but plateaued as a teenager. Now into his 20’s and competing for Australia, he took gold in the 200 fly in 1:59.06 at this meet…