With the Arena Pro Swim Series wrapping up this week with twin meets at either end of the country, we’ve received several queries about the Olympic qualifying status of both meets.
The “news” in this case is that neither Indianapolis nor Santa Clara will count as FINA-established Olympic qualifying events – though that’s not necessarily new news, since the list of FINA meets has been established since February of 2015.
Why Indy & Santa Clara are not on the list:
We reached out to USA Swimming to find out why Indianapolis and Santa Clara were not on FINA’s list, even though the previous PSS stops in Minneapolis, Austin, Orlando, Mesa and Charlotte each were.
The answer, it turns out, is that FINA only allows each federation 4 extra Olympic qualifying meets within a calendar year, per USA Swimming. Minneapolis was in 2015, and USA Swimming selected Austin, Orlando, Mesa and Charlotte for 2016.
According to FINA documents, all National Championships and Olympic Trials meets are already on the list (outside of the 4 additional qualifying meets), so U.S. Olympic Trials gets ushered in as the final Olympic qualifying event within the United States.
What this means:
This mostly affects foreign athletes looking for opportunities to hit FINA “B” or “A” cuts at an approved Olympic qualifying meet and earn an Olympic bid for their nation. For nations like the United States or Canada – who select athletes for the Olympics based off of a single national event – the Olympic status of this weekend’s meets shouldn’t be an issue.
This also doesn’t affect any national or world records set at either meet. Both meets are still FINA approved as sanctioned meets that will be reflected in FINA’s world rankings. They just won’t be usable for Olympic qualifying.
The full FINA Olympic qualifying procedures are here.
The full list of FINA approved Olympic qualifying events is here.