USA Swimming on Friday morning announced the new dates for the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials.
The event will be held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 13th-20th, 2021, one week earlier in the Olympic cycle than the original dates of June 21st-28th, 2020.
That’s as compared to the Olympic Games, which have been pushed off almost exactly one year. The new dates for the Tokyo Olympic Games are July 23rd to August 8th, almost exactly one year after the original dates of July 24th to August 8th.
While the Olympic Trials typically overlap by a few days with the NCAA baseball College World Series that is also held in Omaha, that overlap is usually on the front end of the Olympic Trials. The 2021 College World Series is scheduled to run from June 19th until June 29th or 30th, which means that the overlap for next year will be on the back end of the Olympic Trials, and only for 2 days.
The meet, which is a joint property of USA Swimming and the United States Olympic Committee, will be back in the Chi Health Center in Omaha, where it has been held for every edition of this meet dating back to 2008.
The daily schedule will remain the same across the 15-session, 8-day event, including morning prelims and evening semi/finals sessions (the opposite of what is expected for Tokyo).
You can find the full event schedule for the Trials, which mirrors that of the Olympics with the exception of no relays (and the flipped morning/evening finals), here.
Ticket purchasers will have two options for the 2021 Olympic Trials event:
- re-issuance of new tickets in the same seats for the same session(s)
- ticket refunds within six months of the rescheduling announcement via the original point of purchase
Remaining tickets can be purchased through any Ticketmaster outlet nationwide or online at ticketmaster.com/swimtrials20, as well as at the CHI Health Center Omaha box office.
As of April 10, 2020, 1,213 athletes have qualified to compete at the Olympic Trials. USA Swimming says that they anticipate these successful trials cuts will be accepted for the 2021 event. Updated Trials qualifying standards will be released ahead of the official return to competition across the U.S.
The new cuts are expected to be faster than the 2020 standards in an effort to not have the meet expand too far past USA Swimming’s stated target of 1,200-1,400 swimmers.
You can find the 2020 cuts below.
2020 U.S. Olympic Trial Cuts
For more information on the Trials visit www.usaswimming.org/trials.
This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.
late to the party but do we know when the entry deadline/qualifying deadline is set for the bumped out date? It’s been tough to get a chance to swim.
Logistically, I dont see how the Omaha area can take on an entire additional years worth of qualifiers. You have to think that almost every room and pool (for those who need one) in the area have already been secured. Hotels in the area have kept the reservations and shifted them to the new date (my hotel called me to confirm). I see the new qualifying time to be fairly stringent to keep the numbers to a minimum.
I am so hoping spectators are allowed.
This gorilla now has another year to get back into swimming shape, idk if I’d be able to fit in my jammer by June 2020
This puts the last two days of Trials (overall the most popular days for spectators) on the same days as the first two days of the CWS (reversed from 2016 and what it would have been this year). Omaha is going to be totally overrun that weekend!
I always thought the last day was one of the worst? My memory only goes back 3 years so I could be wrong.
Last time out, the CWS had a bunch of delays due to weather and it overflowed into OTs. It wasn’t much of a problem. USA Swimming even hooked up a deal where OT psses got you into a CWS game that was rescheduled.
Also when will the new ticket sales be available? Right now, Ticketmaster still states that the trials are postponed and aren’t selling any
This is going to be a big meet with the extended qualifying period
They’re making the cuts faster
It will be interesting to see how they decide to deal with new qualifying times because the meet organizers originally wanted this year’s trials to be smaller than past meets.
More info there: https://staging2.swimswam.com/usa-swimming-plans-to-set-new-2021-olympic-trials-standards-for-new-swims/
SwimSwam commenters are going to set the new cuts. I’m sure we’ll start seeing them within hours if not minutes.
I like this idea very much
So does Dean
With all these awesome throwbacks people might get confused who’s still swimming. Shock result when the women’s 800 free slots go to Ledecky and Janet Evans.
We think Dean could win the 200 breast right? Why not slot him in there
When Dean swims it, it’s the 200 beast.