USA Diving announced on Friday that it would not send a team to the 2020 FINA World Junior Diving Championships, even if the competition goes on as scheduled. This led to the subsequent cancellation of the U.S. Junior World Trials.
A spokesperson for USA Diving said that, while they don’t know whether FINA will cancel the World Junior Championships or not, that the organization felt like this was the “responsible decision to make.”
The spokesperson also says that other countries will be making similar announcements soon.
The 2020 World Junior Diving Championships have not yet been cancelled by FINA. The event is scheuled to be held from November 29-December 6 in Kyiv, Ukraine – the same city that hosted the 2018 championships.
The USA Diving Junior National Championships were originally scheduled from July 26-August 2 in San Antonio, Texas. USA Diving has not announced a new date for the Tokyo 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials.
USA Diving cited 4 factors for their decision:
- We are not willing to put our coaches’ and athletes’ health in harm’s way.
- Many of our clubs are not able to get back in the water.
- U.S. Citizens are largely not allowed to travel internationally.
- Other national federations will also be forgoing this year’s competition.
“We understand that this decision will be disappointing to our athletes, coaches, and parents but it is our duty to always protect the safety of our membership and do our part to protect the safety of our international diving community,” the statement reads.
At the 2018 World Junior Diving Championships, the US finished 6th on the medals table with 3 silver and 1 bronze award. China led all nations with 14 gold and 24 total medals in 17 events.
This is in contrast to the approach that the AAU is taking, announcing earlier this week that they would carry forward with the AAU Diving National Championships from August 3-8.
Ukraine is seeing around 700 new daily cases of coronavirus over the last week, which is a decrease to the country’s peak in late June. In total, the country of 42 million citizens has recorded 57,000 cases of coronavirus leading to 1,456 deaths.
FINA has not held any official competition since the virus began spreading rapidly outside of China in February.