2020 WESTERN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, February 26 – Saturday, February 29
- CRWC Natatorium – Houston, TX
- Defending Champion: Northern Arizona women (6x), Grand Canyon men (1x)
- 2019 Results
- Estimated NCAA Invite Times
- NCAA ‘A’ Cuts
- Live Results
- Championship Central
- Day 1 Recap
Update: Late on Thursday Evening, the University of Houston notified the public that the campus would remain closed through Friday, February 28th, due to “uncertain timeline for repair, and the Boil Water Notice issued by the City to include the UH campus.” All University activities were cancelled with the exception of the varsity baseball game at 6:30. The school says that once water is restored to campus, it may take “several hours to properly flush the system and restore service.”
As a result, the WAC has shifted their Friday session to a single timed-finals session, beginning at 10:30 A.M. That session will include the 200 free relays, as well as the men’s 1-meter and women’s 3-meter diving finals.
Because there is no drinkable water and no working restrooms, no spectators are being allowed as the meet. The University is bringing in portable toilets for student-athlete, coaches, and officials usage, and teams will need to bring their own drinking water.
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) plans to resume competition on Friday morning at the 2020 men’s and women’s swimming and diving championship meet after a broken water main cut water to the University of Houston campus on Thursday.
The conference’s tentative plan, presuming that they are able to resume competition on Friday, is to score Thursday’s morning session as a timed final for swimming event. Friday’s prelims will then run as scheduled, and Fridays finals will start at 5:30 PM with the 200 free relay (which was originally scheduled for Thursday’s evening session as a timed final).
Thursdays diving events, the men’s 1-meter and women’s 3-meter, will be completed on Friday, with both platform events (men’s and women’s) being scheduled for Saturday. The original schedule had men’s platform on Friday and women’s platform on Saturday.
The conference contacted several other facilities in the Houston area to explore the possibility of moving the meet, but were unable to find an alternative location that was available.
Neither the University of Houston nor the City of Houston have provided updates on an estimated return of normal water flow to the University of Houston campus, though several residents have reported that water has returned to residential properties.
While the meet will continue, the cancellation does prevent swimmers chasing possible NCAA Championship qualifying standards from getting a 2nd swim on Thursday. The closest swimmers to achieving an NCAA Championship invite-worthy time standard in prelims were in the sprint freestyles. For the women, the top finisher was Northern Arizona’s Elisa Rodriguez in the women’s 50 free when she dropped .44 seconds to swim 22.81. Last year, a 22.35 was needed for an NCAA invite in that race.
For the men, Grand Canyon’s Mazen Shoukry swam 19.71. Last year, a 19.35 earn an NCAA Championship invite.
SwimSwam is working on a day 2 recap of the WAC Championships this evening and will update scoring when it becomes available. Read the day 1 recap here.
Friday prelims are now also timed finals. Session is only from 9 to 3. Not sure of Saturday’s schedule yet.
I think there should be almost unlimited time trials for those trying to meet the NCAA cut once the water is restored to normal. They could be held the last day between trials and finals or in the evening after the meet. Shaved swimmers can do amazing things. I once had a girl hit eight National cuts when there were no limits on time trials at the Juniors. I just hope they get water restored quickly. Not sure why only morning instead of only evening if time to get things restored is the issue. Either way, I’m sure everyone is doing their best under challenging circumstances.
CFISD, FBISD & CISD (3 Houston area school districts) all have indoor 50 meter pools. Wondering if anyone contacted any of them. I don’t think any of them are in the water boil area
my understanding from yesterday is that they contacted local pools and none of them could host
That’s correct – they were unable to find an alternative facility, though they did try.
Rip everyone who cruised prelims.
Now I know why my swimmer’s coach gets them to swim pretty hard in prelims ( but not 100%)
What if someone took it a bit easier in prelims to save for finals? There is gotta be a better solution.
Exactly my point why Fridays events should be timed finals.
It’s a very unfortunate situation. No good way to do it. This is what the coaches agreed on. Hopefully there can be a time trial session for swimmers going after cuts.
Do we even know if they’ll be able to compete tomorrow?
I understand that there are some logistical issues and probably some monetary issues as well but this is absurd. All universities should pay extra and stay until Sunday or Monday. These kids practice all year for this moment, they can’t just not let them swim.
A swimmer who can allow him/herself to take the foot of the gas and still qualify for the A final, should absolutely do so and it is absolutely fine to qualify 4th or 5th and then win it at all at night. I understand the circumstances and the idea of timed finals seem to be the best solution possible, but preventing these kids for getting a second swim without knowing it in advance is… Read more »
It was not a unanimous decision among the coaches.
It would seem more fair to swim Thursdays events finals Friday morning and then Timed finals for Fridays events at night.
I agree. Sacrifice one of the OTHER sessions where the swimmers know it’s time finals. Seems like an awful solution to use prelims times when the swimmers didn’t know it was TF