Return To Richmond, San Antonio Debut Highlight Changes To 2020-21 PSS Schedule

With the entire swimming community forced to recalibrate its upcoming schedule amid the COVID-19 pandemic, USA Swimming has officially announced the cancellation of its major summer 2020 meets (a move that felt inevitable after the Olympics were moved back one year to 2021). The organization also announced its lineup of major meets for late 2020 and the front-half of 2021, including the Pro Swim Series.

In October of 2018, USA Swimming announced a new-look PSS (that was also the first year it solicited bids for hosts) that featured five new locations: Knoxville, Tenn., Des Moines, Iowa, Richmond, Va., Bloomington, Ind., and Clovis, Calif. These new locations replaced the traditional ones that included Austin, Atlanta, Mesa, Indianapolis and Santa Clara.

In 2019-20, they added a November stop in Greensboro (Winter Nationals were held there in November of 2018), and moved from Richmond to Mission Viejo in April and Bloomington to Indianapolis in May (both of which were ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic). Knoxville in January and Des Moines in March remained.

Now, heading into the 2020-21 schedule, there are two changes from the abbreviated 2019-20 campaign.

• Richmond, which hosted for the first and only time in April 2019, will hold the first PSS meet of the season on November 5-8, replacing Greensboro.
• In early March, the Pro Swim Series will make its debut in San Antonio, Texas, taking over for Des Moines which hosted in that spot the two previous years.

2020-21 Pro Swim Series Schedule

• Nov 5-8, 2020: Pro Swim Series at Richmond (Richmond, VA)
• Jan. 13-16, 2021: Pro Swim Series at Knoxville (Knoxville, TN)
• March 3-6, 2021: Pro Swim Series at San Antonio (San Antonio, TX)
• April 8-11, 2021: Pro Swim Series at Mission Viejo (Mission Viejo, CA)
• May 12-15, 2021: Pro Swim Series at Indianapolis (Indianapolis, IN)

The San Antonio stop will take place at the indoor Blossom Athletic Center, not the outdoor Northside ISD Swim Center (which we originally suspected).

MEET HOSTS & CAPACITIES

• Richmond: Collegiate School Aquatics Center (750 capacity)
• Knoxville: Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center (1,284 capacity)
• San Antonio: Blossom Athletic Center (1,500 capacity)
• Mission Viejo: Marguerite Aquatics Complex (Expandable capacity)
• Indianapolis: IU Natatorium (4,700 capacity)

The capacity in Richmond is particularly low relative to the others, but that may be a non-issue given the recent ticket struggles the PSS has had (with the real challenge being filling up the larger capacity pools).

The USA Swimming schedule also features the second consecutive U.S. Open meet held in Atlanta, Ga., in early December, which rebranded from Winter Nationals in 2019.

After the final stop on the PSS schedule in Indianapolis, athletes will have just under a month before action kicks off at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha.