USA Diving has announced that they are postponing the 2021 World Cup Trials “indefinitely” amid a national rise in coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths. The event was scheduled to take place next week in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Registration fees for the meet are being refunded.
The 2021 FINA Diving World Cup, which is scheduled to be held from April 18-23, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, was originally scheduled for 2020 before the outbreak of the coronavirus forced them to be postponed. It was later rescheduled for late February before being pushed until April.
The event is a crucial part of the Olympic qualifying process for divers, as the 18 semifinalists in the individual springboard events will earn quota spots for their countries at the Olympic Games. Those spots are not awarded to an individual athlete, but to a country, which then may use its own process to distribute those positions.
Each country can send up to 2 participants in each individual event and 1 pair in each synchronized event.
Selection Priority, individual diving events:
- Top 12 finishers at the 2019 World Championships
- Continental Champions
- 18 Semifinalists from the 2021 Diving World Cup
Selection Priority, synchronized diving events:
- Top 3 finishers from the World Championships
- Top 4 finishers from the 2021 Diving World Cup
- Remaining places allocated to the best finishers at the World Cup until the maximum number of divers is reached
So far, Americans have 7 quota spots earned for the Tokyo Olympic Games:
- Men’s 3-meter individual (2 spots)
- Men’s platform individual (2 spots)
- Women’s platform individual (2 spots)
- Women’s platform synchro (1 spot)
That leaves the Americans with a lot of work to do to hit their maximum of 12 quota places (16 total athlete positions) for the Olympic Games.
China is the only country that has qualified a full complement of divers so far. Japan, as the host nation, has 7 quota spots and 11 diving positions qualified, while Great Britain has 8 quota spots and 10 diving positions qualified.
USA Diving qualified their full complement of male divers for the 2016 Olympic Games, but did not participate in the 3-meter women’s synchro event in Rio.
“This decision was not made lightly,” said USA Diving President, Lee Michaud, “but after receiving feedback from public health professionals, our athletes, coaches and other individuals, we felt it was in the best interests of our community’s health to refrain from traveling and coming together at this time.”
USA Diving says that it is exploring options both to hold the trials later, and to use another procedure to select the team for the 2021 FINA World Cup.
The state of North Carolina has seen a 43% rise in new cases and 30% rise in deaths attributed to COVID-19 over the last 14 days. Guilford County, home to Greensboro, has averaged 2.9 deaths per day over the last week. That is the 2nd-most among all counties, behind only Mecklenburg County, home to the state’s largest city Charlotte. On a per-capita basis, Guilford County is seeing fewer new cases than the state on average.