2023 WOMENS BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, February 15 – Saturday, February 18, 2023
- Canham Natatorium, Ann Arbor, MI
- Defending Champions:
- Women: Ohio State (3x)
- Live Results
- Live Video
- Championship Central
- Fan Guide
The 2023 Women’s Big Ten Swimming & Diving Championships kick off tonight at Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor, MI. Tonight’s schedule will include the usual opening relays, the 200 medley and 800 free, however, there’s an additional twist this year as well.
There will be an exhibition team diving event tonight. The concept of this event is almost like a diving medley relay of sorts. Each team that is participating will have three divers competing. One will do two dives on 1-meter, another two dives on 3-meter, and the last two dives on platform, for a total of six dives.
While the event is exhibition this year, and therefore won’t go towards the official team scores, the Big Ten is hoping the NCAA will vote to make it an official event, in which case it would become a scoring event at the conference level as well. The reasoning for including this event is that it will encourage coaches to send more divers to the conference championship meet, instead of using those roster spots for extra swimmers. The way it’s set up, this event would have the scoring value of a relay if it were made an official event, so any team that chose not to send three divers to the conference championships would be choosing to essentially skip a relay.
When asked about the addition of the event this year, Indiana University head diving coach Drew Johansen told SwimSwam “I am very excited to see the team diving event go off here in a few hours. Our entire swim/dive team loves the team aspect, similar to the excitement we feel with relays,” adding that he “would love to see this event grow into a scoring event.”
Add this and the 1000 to the championship schedule, and I’ll buy a ticket to NCs
Also it would be two dives on platform, not three, and when it was done at Texas, one diver could do one dive on two different boards. Also you have to cover all 6 positions. Front, back, reverse, inward, twisting and armstand(tower only)
This was quite successful at Texas invitational this winter. One question. If NCAA treats it like a relay, do divers become a full person? Not sure that that would be a happy result.
I don’t know. A full relay’s points from 3 athletes would be hard to pass up at conference. A last place relay at womens B1Gs is 30 points. Not a no-brainer, but a full relay’s points from 1.5 athletes will mean just about every team in every conference is brining 4 divers.
This is cool