FINA has announced that the 2022 World Junior Swimming Championships will take place in Kazan, Russia from August 23-28, 2022.
Originally, the competition was scheduled to occur August 24-29, 2021, but the competition was postponed to 2022 due to the pandemic.
The postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games to 2021 led to the initially scheduled 2021 FINA World Championships moving to 2022. Subsequently, World Junior Championships and the 2021 World University Games were also postponed until 2022.
In August 2021, USA Swimming announced that they would hold an International Championship Trials in April 2022, which will serve as the selection meet for the upcoming international competitions. While the selection meet is typically Summer Nationals, which typically takes place in June or July, World Championships is scheduled to begin on May 13.
World Junior Championships occur every two years and feature the top age group swimmers in the world. To be eligible, female swimmers must be 14-17 years old and male swimmers must be 15-18 years old based on their age at the end of the year.
FINA has not provided information about their plans for age eligibility after multiple requests. British Swimming, however, has posted their internal selection criteria which indicates the age eligibility was not extended. To be eligible to compete at the World Junior Championships, females must be born between/during years 2005 and 2008 and males must be born between/during years 2004 and 2007.
That is as compared to other postponed events, including the World University Games, which have extended age eligibility based on the original dates.
At the 2019 World Junior Championships held in Budapest, the United States led the medal count with 37 total medals, including 18 golds. The United States’ roster included future Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medalists Torri Huske and Claire Curzan, who won six and four medals in Budapest, respectively.
The meet also included double Olympic medalist Thomas Ceccon of Italy, who won the 100 backstroke at the 2019 World Juniors.
USA trials are very late. Finishes less than 2 weeks before the world champs
I wonder if they will make the age different for those who got left out of JR meets due to covid. Junior athletes who were 16 in 2020 won’t have the chance to race. Kind of sad if you ask me