USA Swimming announced a few updates to its 2023 domestic calendar on Tuesday while also revealing the five sites for next year’s Futures Championship meets.
The 2023 Futures Championship meets will be held in the following locations, all taking place from July 26-29, 2023:
- Region 1 – Richmond, Virginia – SwimRVA
- Region 2 – Ocala, Florida – Florida Aquatics Swimming & Training (FAST)
- Region 3 – West Fargo, North Dakota – Hulbert Aquatic Center
- Region 4 – San Antonio, Texas – Bill Walker Pool
- Region 5 – Sacramento, California – North Natomas Aquatic Center
Next summer will mark the eighth year of the Futures Championships, with the format undergoing a change this past year as USA Swimming’s Board of Directors added a fifth region and adjusted the boundary map accordingly. Prior to 2022, there were only four hosting sites for the four designated regions.
This past summer, the Futures meets were held in Geneva, Ohio, Cary, N.C., Minneapolis, Minn., College Station, Texas, and Santa Clara, Calif.
The Futures Championships are designed as an intermediate step between Sectional Championships and Junior National or National Championships, and are open to swimmers of all ages. However, the inclusion of senior-aged swimmers came into question this past summer.
The Futures time standards remain the same as they’ve been dating back to 2019. See below:
2023 FUTURES TIME STANDARDS
When does registration open?
Fargo? Are you kidding. Never, not on your life. What a waste of time and money to take our kids there for a swim meet. I’d rather stay home and watch a Coen Brothers marathon. I guess we’ll take a BIG pass on 2023.
Weird take. I love Fargo. Great little town and, more importantly, great pool (Olympic Trials pool).
There are great pools all over the west coast, it’s unfair to require teams to travel all the way from the west coast to fill up the Fargo Venue. Reminds me of Kevin Costner, “If you build it they will come, (But they won’t be very happy about it)”. Just confine us to the Left Bank where we belong. We would be happy to swim at any venue in California, Arizona or Nevada.
From Fargo here, a new $25 million facility was built about 5 years ago. Amazing place to swim fast, but can be a slow town in terms of stuff to do.
Looks like an amazing pool. Heading there this weekend for senior states, and at three days out, no information to teams. Never a good sign.
I went there in 2021 for Futures. I had a blast as an athlete.
Also, you should ask your swimmers if they think its something they would like. Its not about you.
It is about us as parents, our swimmers would be just as happy to compete on the west coast where we can either drive or take one flight to get to a venue. This is not the olympics, it’s not even nationals. It looks like money talks here and someone with a lot of oil money is trying to promote a big pool in a small town and the only way to make the competition appear to match the quality of the pool is to fill it up with swimmers regardless of how far away they are and how inconvenient it is to travel. Washington state is on the West Coast and we should not have to undertake an expensive… Read more »
No you’re right, your friends from North Dakota should have to make the expensive trip to California to swim every year (instead of just almost every year).
Personally I’d rather be inside in Fargo instead of outside in 100-110*+ heat in Clovis/Santa Clara/Sacramento, I also get that others would feel differently. Indoors is also better for backstoke and IM swimmers who don’t get to train outside regularly.
I’m a swimmer qualified for the San Antonio futures meet. Can anyone tell me about the concerns with the Bill Walker pool?
The most common legitimate concern people seem to have with the Bill Walker Pool is the amount of deck space available.
Having competed there many times over the years and I can tell you the facility, from it’s original build through the recently completed $16+ million in renovations, has been designed to prioritize FAST swimming.
Air quality has never been an issue, the lighting is great, and in my opinion the condensed spectator seating makes for an atmosphere not all that far from a D1 Conference or NCAA Championship meet.
I’m sure they’ve had some hiccups over the years, but anyone who’s ever competed in, registered athletes for, or hosted a large meet knows it’s not uncommon… Read more »
Bill walker pool in Tx has to be the worst location for a futures meet since it’s literally a garage and it’s not that big
Agreed! UT Austin or Texas A&M would be a better pool than the Bill Walker Pool
I love the premise of Futures and don’t have a HUGE issue with 19O qualifiers attending. But the bigger issue to me is allowing anyone with a senior nationals time standard to attend.
I understand some travel concerns for certain teams which leads them to take all swimmers including those at senior national level to Futures, but it really wrecks the purpose of the meet IMO. Before when this wasn’t allowed it really promoted the stepping stone between sectionals & junior nationals, but with this requirement gone I think that’s gone by the wayside as well.
Compensating for the bad showing at Minneapolis by adding some lscs that went to Cary
According to teammates, Bill Walker couldn’t even host a descent STAGS (S. TX Age Group Swimming, i.e. basically USA A cuts+) summer 2022. Very sad to see this choice of venue for Futures 2023.
It is still a very new pool and AAAA has a demonstrated history of running several successful swim meets. What happened at STAGS was really out of their hands. Can’t predict a pipe bust and they did a great job keeping families and coaches informed and aware of options.
Between the lighting, the multiple pools, parking, hospitality and the fact the AAAA coaches are awesome, I don’t doubt for a minute that the Futures swim meet won’t be a massive success.
Futures at spire >>
Minus the no cell phone reception, no close hotels, no permanent sound system…
Yikes
Futures at Spire is an abomination.
We were there in July. The air quality was terrible, no cell reception, and no A/C on deck. I’m a coach and was there for prelims/ distance/ finals every day, and it was miserable! And three of our swimmers attending are asthmatic, two being my daughters. It was a rough few days!