2021 NCAA MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- When: Wednesday, March 24 – Saturday, March 27, 2021
- Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
- Prelims 10 AM/ Finals 6 PM (Local Time)
- Short course yards (SCY) format
- Defending champion: Cal (1x) – 2019 results
- Streaming:
- Championship Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
While Saturday morning’s heat sheets don’t have any huge surprises, there are always plenty of Declared False Starts, and we already know about one really big one.
According to the Louisville coaching staff, senior Evgenii Somov will be leaving NCAAs early in order to head home and start preparing for the Russian Olympic Trials, which take place next week. While obviously planned, that’s still a big loss points-wise for the Cardinals, as Somov was seeded 4th in the 200 breast.
Heading into this morning, Louisville was in 6th place with 150 points, behind of Indiana (158) and ahead of Texas A&M (127) and NC State (120). Louisville has been mostly firing on all cylinders this meet, and the Cardinals have momentum in their favor after winning their first-ever NCAA relay title last night in the 200 medley relay, on which Somov swam the breaststroke leg. Without Somov, Louisville is seeded to score 74 points today to Indiana’s 52 so it may come down to diving, where IU’s Andrew Capobianco won the 3m last night, but failed to score on the platform in 2019 after taking 3rd in 2018.
The only two scratches we could find both came in the 200 breast. Yesterday, Northwestern’s Kevin Houseman scratched out of the B-final of the 100 breast, and Northwestern’s staff confirmed that Houseman would be out of the rest of the meet due to a non-Covid medical issue. Houseman was seeded 39th in the 200 breast, and sure enough, doesn’t appear on Saturday’s heat sheet.
Texas A&M senior Tanner Olson is out of the 200 breast, where he was seeded 39th. Olson swam on the Aggies’ 200 medley relay Friday night, but it is possible that he could be scratching the 200 breast as a prelude to swimming on Texas A&M’s 400 free relay Saturday evening. He didn’t swim on that relay at SECs last month, but he was part of the Aggies’ 200 free relay on Thursday.
While those were the only two scratches we noticed, expect there to be plenty more Declared False Starts and empty lanes in the morning, especially from swimmers who had marginal chances of scoring, but could end up on teams’ 400 free relays,
Cool throne Hugo
Best of luck
He can’t wait 24 hours?
Probably have to quarantine for x amount of days upon return to Russia and cant wait the 24 hours.
Best of luck to him!
There might only be a handful of flights from the US to Moscow on a weekly basis. He might have had to catch one of those. So if flights only leave to Russia on Saturdays, then this move makes sense.
Aeroflot more than 7 per week JFK-SVO
apparently not, else he would have
Maybe true and the timing is unfortunate, would you tell your stud swimmer not to go and try for his dream?
When do the Russia Trials start?