Streamlined News: Feb. 22, 2012


PHOENIX, Arizona, February 22. DIVISION I collegiate conference championships continue today across the country. In Virginia the men of the Atlantic Coast Conference start competition today, with Virginia looking to win their fifth consecutive title. Virginia Tech, however, has the advantage going into today's swimming events, as the Hokies won all three diving events in earlier competition.

The Big 12 men's and women's competition also starts today on the campus of the University of Missouri. This will be the last time Texas A&M will compete against their longtime rivals the University of Texas in conference competition, as the Aggies are moving to the Southeastern Conference next season. This move will be more noticeable in the women's race, where Texas and Texas A&M have had some close battles in the past five years. The Texas men have won every conference meet since 1997, and the Texas women are going for a repeat win.

The Pac-12 women's conference meet starts today in Federal Way, Washington, and the Stanford Cardinal is the defending champion, though they will have a battle with California, who is the reigning national champion. Stanford has the momentum going into the meet, as they just beat Berkeley in dual competition.

Over in London the FINA diving world cup continues, and the United States has gained all the open roster spots it needed for the Olympics. In the men's three-meter individual event, Chris Colwill finished ninth in preliminaries to gain the roster spot. The US had already gotten the other roster spot in the event at last summer's world championships, thanks to Troy Dumais' fifth-place finish. As a reminder, the divers who will fill those roster spots will be determined at the Olympic Trials in June. Colwill advanced to the finals of the three-meter, qualifying fourth.

Here's a warning to all swimmers getting ready for the big championship meet, especially if you're in high school. Broadneck High School, located in Annapolis, Maryland, had their county swimming team title taken away yesterday after it was discovered that one of their swimmers violated rules dictating that no shaving could be done at the swimming venue. This rule is in the National Federation of State High School Association's rule book, and officials disqualified the swimmer and voided all her results from the meet. That bumped Broadneck down to third in the team rankings, giving the team title to Severna Park High School. The rule is in effect for health reasons, to prevent the risk of transmission of blood-borne diseases that increases with body shaving. Broadneck coach Colleen Winans is facing punishment for the rule violation as well.

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