2016 USA Swimming Pre-Olympic Camp to Be Held in San Juan, Puerto Rico

USA Swimming has selected San Juan, Puerto Rico as the site of the 2016 post-Olympic-Trials, pre-Olympic-Games “foreign” training camp.

At September’s meeting of the OIOC (Olympic International Operations Committee), USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch announced that a site had been secured in the capital of the American unincorporated territory. The selection group also considered sites in Trinidad & Tobago and Brazil before settling on San Juan.

Prior to the 2012 Olympics, the Americans first camped in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then went to Vichy, France for 10 days of final preparations and to adjust to the time zone differences. Though a full schedule and plans haven’t been announced yet, this two-part training camp system wouldn’t be as necessary in 2016, though USA Swimming could still opt to use one. That’s because Olympic hosts Rio de Janeiro  are only one hour ahead of United States East Coast time (at Olympics time anyway – Daylight Savings makes for some screwy time differences). That means that while there will still be some amount of a jet-lag/adjustment period, it won’t be nearly as bad as London, which is 5 hours ahead of United States East Coast time.

Note: In the American summer, Brazil is 1 hour ahead of the United States. When Brazilian Daylight Savings switches in October, Brazil is 2 hours ahead of the United States, and when The United States’ Daylight Savings time kicks in for early November, it becomes three hours ahead).

San Juan is on the same time zone as the United States’ east coast.

Ironically, as the Americans go further south, other national Olympic committees are considering American training basis prior to the Games.

Note: The official minutes from the meeting referred to Puerto Rico as “foreign,” though American citizens do not need a passport to travel there. Puerto Rico does, however, have its own Olympic Team, so it is a foreign country in the Olympic sense.