USA Swimming Spring Championships
March 27 - March 31 2007
East Meadow, NY, United States
www.omegatiming.com/.../index.htmwww.memphistigerswimming.com/.../07 Spring Champs Meet Book.pdfwww.nassaucountyny.gov/.../NC_aqua_ctr.html
Long Island’s Eisenhower Park to host 2007 USA Swimming Spring Championships (3/20/2007)
Olympic Medalists, Top Long Island High School Swimmers Mix at Meet March 27-31
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The 2007 USA Swimming Spring Championships will be held March 27-31 at Long Island’s Nassau County Aquatic Center. Heats begin at 9 a.m. each morning with finals starting at 5:30 p.m. The meet, which is officially sanctioned by USA Swimming, the national governing body for the sport, will feature talent including Olympic medalists, national champions and Long Island’s top local talent.
Highlighting the field are an array of Olympic medalists. Carly Piper (Grosse Point, Mich.), a member of the gold-medal-winning 800m free relay that broke the 17-year-old world record at the 2004 Olympic Games, is joined by three-time gold medalist Brooke Bennett (Tampa, Fla.). In addition, Maritza Correia (Valrico, Fla.), a 2004 silver medalist in the 400m freestyle relay, will continue her push for the 2008 Olympic Games in East Meadow. Correia, the first black American woman to qualify for an Olympic swim team, is currently training out of Raleigh, N.C. Correia is joined by 1996 Olympic silver medalist Alison Wagner (San Francisco, Calif.). Wagner won her Olympic medal in the 400m individual medley.
Swimming alongside the Olympic and national champions are 10 Long Island swimmers ranging in age from 14-26 and representing the Long Island Express and Long Island Aquatic Club. The early psyche sheet can be found at usaswimming.org/media. Local contenders include Kevin Wakefield, Yury Zimarev, Dan Demarko, Emily Kelly, Erica Derlath, Julia Festa, Tommy O’Neil, Sean Lane, Jack Wagner and Bobby Smith.
Omegatiming.com will carry live results from the competition. In addition, session summaries and other meet coverage can be found at usaswimming.org Preliminary heats for the women’s 800m freestyle and men’s 1500m free will be contested on Tuesday, March 27 beginning at 4 p.m. For the remainder of the meet, morning sessions will start at 9 a.m., with finals at 5:30 p.m.
Single-session passes are available for both preliminaries ($3 children/students, $5 adults) and finals ($7 children/students, $10 adults). All-session passes may be purchased for $45 and $60. For more information, call 516-572-0509 or email tickets@ncaquaticcenter.com .
Coverage including results, wrap ups, and photo galleries can be found here.
Media wishing to cover the meet should apply for credentials at usaswimming.org/media. Questions regarding meet coverage may be addressed to jrusnak@usaswimming.org.
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About USA Swimming
As the National Governing Body for competitive swimming in the United States, USA Swimming formulates the rules, implements policies and procedures, conducts national championships, disseminates safety and sports medicine information and selects athletes to represent the United States in international competition. USA Swimming has more than 300,000 members nationwide and sanctions more than 7,000 events each year. For more information, visit usaswimming.org.
About Nassau County Aquatic Center
The Aquatic Center at Eisenhower Park is a world-class swimming facility that is part of the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums. It was built in 1998 for the Goodwill Games and has a capacity for 1,800 spectators.
Here are three reasons why the timing of spring nationals/championships is not inconvenient:
1) Given that World Champs prelims are in the mid-afternoon and finals are in the middle of the night here in the States, I don't think people will be staying away from nationals to watch it on the Internet.
They can watch prelims in NY, go home/to the hotel and watch Worlds' prelims and then watch nationals/championships finals in NY. If they can, they can stay up and watch worlds finals in the wee small hours of the morning.
2) Putting this meet at this time means world champs swimmers aren't tempted to come to the meet and try for a better swim than they had in Australia. Which gives more inexperienced swimmers (or those veterans aiming for a comeback) a chance to get a chance to swim in finals and get pushed out by someone like Hoff, Phelps or the rest. Also, they can see the times others are going and know what they need to do if they want to have a shot at the Olympics next year. If I were going to NY this week, I'd be happy it was scheduled now.
3) If memory serves, spring nationals is always held the last week of March, one week after men's NCAA. Why should USA Swimming change their calendar for this meet? I know there is no big summer meet this year, but there are probably going to be a lot of college swimmers who will benefit from having it so close to NCAAs.
Here are three reasons why the timing of spring nationals/championships is not inconvenient:
1) Given that World Champs prelims are in the mid-afternoon and finals are in the middle of the night here in the States, I don't think people will be staying away from nationals to watch it on the Internet.
They can watch prelims in NY, go home/to the hotel and watch Worlds' prelims and then watch nationals/championships finals in NY. If they can, they can stay up and watch worlds finals in the wee small hours of the morning.
2) Putting this meet at this time means world champs swimmers aren't tempted to come to the meet and try for a better swim than they had in Australia. Which gives more inexperienced swimmers (or those veterans aiming for a comeback) a chance to get a chance to swim in finals and get pushed out by someone like Hoff, Phelps or the rest. Also, they can see the times others are going and know what they need to do if they want to have a shot at the Olympics next year. If I were going to NY this week, I'd be happy it was scheduled now.
3) If memory serves, spring nationals is always held the last week of March, one week after men's NCAA. Why should USA Swimming change their calendar for this meet? I know there is no big summer meet this year, but there are probably going to be a lot of college swimmers who will benefit from having it so close to NCAAs.
