2023 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- March 15-18, 2023
- Allan Jones Aquatic Center–Knoxville, Tennessee
- SCY (25 yards)
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Despite qualifying for all five relays, the LSU women will only swim the 200 and 400 free relays at the 2023 NCAA championships. LSU does not appear on the MeetMobile heat sheets for the 200 medley and 800 free relays on day one and is also missing from the entries for the 400 medley relay on day three.
“We’re focusing our efforts on where we can maximize point production,” LSU head coach Rick Bishop told SwimSwam.
LSU’s absence from the 200 medley relay means that we will not see Maggie MacNeil get to race a 50 back (or any backstroke at all, as a matter of fact). At SECs, she clocked a 22.52 50 back to become the fastest ever in the event. In addition, she also split a 48.76 100 fly on LSU’s 400 medley relay, clocking the second-fastest 100 fly relay performance ever.
Logistically, LSU’s scratches make sense. Their 200 medley relay would have been seeded 22nd (1:36.59), their 400 medley relay would have been seeded 20th (3:32.08), and their 800 free relay would have been seeded 15th (7:02.12), meaning that their chances of scoring high in all three relays are minimal.
In addition, several of LSU’s relay swimmers from SECs were not able to make the trip to NCAAs because of the four relay-only swimmer limit. Those relay swimmers include Hannah Womer, the team’s breaststroker for the medley relays, as well as 800 free relay members Chloe Cheng and Reagan Osborne.
Northwestern is also missing from the heat sheets for the 800 free relay, despite being on the original list of eligible relays. They had been seeded 17th with a time of 7:04.80.
The NCAA rules on relay only swimmers at championships is somewhat to blame here too.
They missed a good opportunity to practice the blocks, the walls and get some speed. Dumb decision IMO
Someone didn’t want to swim relays.
You’re telling me an extra 50 on the first day is going to wear them out for the rest of the meet?
Sort of lame. Good relay splits can boost confidence, and the opportunity is now taken away. This decision would make more sense if relays were still prelim/finals, but it’s timed finals now. These are finely tuned athletes in their primes, I don’t think a couple more swims is going to negatively impact their performance. If so, they may be in the wrong sport.
idk i feel like if you already know you won’t be scoring many points it’s just as well to go ahead and let your swimmers swim. If they’re trying to rest MacNeil and she ends up underperforming for whatever reason, it’ll be a shame that other swimmers on the team won’t be getting the chance to get more racing in at the championship level. It’s going to be much harder to get back to this point without MM on the roster next year
maybe there are funding reasons that they feel they need to maximize points by making sure MM can perform to her full potential
I mean I get what you’re saying, but they also quite literally don’t have the swimmers to put together a medley relay when many of their relay members from SECs didn’t get an NCAA invite and their relay-only swimmers are all sprint freestylers being used for their 200/400 free relays that actually have a shot at scoring.
Why waste time having a 50 freestyler fake a 100 breast split just to show that you swam in a relay (their 2medley relay flyer also isn’t here, to add on)? Not a single one of their swimmers at NCAAs has raced a single 100 breast this year.
I would have them. Racing 50s today has no possible effect on the rest of the meet except for having fun, getting on the blocks and cutting it loose. Maybe you even score some points. Relay scoring is slower at the meet than seeing most years.
But I’m the guy who had his swimmers race at least once every day at championship meets. Relay, time trial, something, just to get the blood flowing. At yNats I had a swinger who won 2 events on day 2 and day 4. She always time trialed something to see where she would have placed on her off days
I get the idea but these are swimmers racing at the peak of their careers. They probably did multiple swims at YNats and championships growing up.
Fact is they don’t need to race this relay just to finish well out of scoring. From a sportsmanship stand point this isn’t the meet to do that in,
Did Dak Prescott’s girlfriend(I don’t remember what her name was) qualify and should we expect to see him in the stands on the broadcast?
No she wasn’t even close
Jadyn Jannasch
I assume she’s more focused on instagram than swimming
Wow. Throwing shade on a college student because she has an social media presence and is dating someone famous????? Unless you are on the team you probably have no idea off she is more focused on social media than swimming. It is very possible to do both right??????
bold of you to assume this is derogatory lol
She didn’t even make the SEC team