The Week That Was: Big College News Top Swimming Headlines

Katie Ledecky
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Though the summer long course swimming season is upon us, most of the past week’s top swimming headlines looked forward to the fall season, where a swimming great made a choice about her training location and FINA announced a change to its format for the World Cup.

The Week That was is supported by AgonSwim.com

The Week That Was #5: Petra Martin named head coach of Rutgers Women’s Swimming

Rutgers University is bringing on Petra Martin as the head coach of the women’s swimming team at the New Jersey school. She comes from Bowling Green University, where she helped the Falcons place in the top three at the Mid-American Conference. Martin will have a heftier goal at Rutgers, working to get the Knights out of the bottom of the Big Ten rankings.

The Week That Was #4: Joe Lucia’s retirement creates split of Cornell swim programs

After 28 years leading the swim programs at Cornell, Joe Lucia is preparing to step down as the head coach of the men’s and women’s teams at the Ivy League school. He’ll stay on deck for a period of time as a volunteer assistant coach, according to the university’s press release, and help with fundraising and recruiting. Lucia had two associate head coaches under him to separately focus on the men’s and women’s teams, and instead of continuing to have both squads run under one person’s leadership, the associate coaches will run the programs separately. Patrick Gallagher will take over the women’s team, while Wes Newman will run the men’s team.

The Week That Was #3: Banned doctor Ba Zhen gets suspension extended

Ba Zhen, the doctor who was partly to blame for Sun Yang’s positive drug test last year, got into trouble by the World Anti-Doping Agency when it was discovered that he attended last fall’s Asian Games to support the athletes under his care. His one-year ban that was supposed to end this coming Saturday prevented him from attending any competitions, even as a spectator. FINA said that Ba Zhen went to the Games to “rehabilitate his athlete during that competition.” As a result, Ba Zhen is banned until September 27.

The Week That Was #2: FINA World Cup in 2015 to be conducted in long course

In a subtle bid to attract more American swimmers, FINA announced that this year’s World Cup meets will be held in long course meters format, a major change for the popular circuit that takes swimmers across Europe and Asia for the opportunity to earn cash while getting in some racing experience. Most of the top swimming nations send their best athletes to many of these meets, except the United States. With the exception of mainstays such as Tom Shields, the USA rarely has a strong presence in the World Cup. That might change with the news that it will not be in short course meters, which is not a popular format in the States. FINA also said the change was designed to give athletes more opportunities to qualify for the Olympics. We’ll see how the change affects the leaderboard, where Hungarian Katinka Hosszu is still likely to reign supreme and race as many events as possible. Michael Phelps had indicated that he was planning to attend the World Cup meet in France in mid-August, which will come immediately after the U.S. nationals.

The Week That Was #1: Katie Ledecky staying at Nation’s Capital Swim Club this fall, will defer enrollment to Stanford

One of the most anticipated headlines of this summer was Katie Ledecky’s unenviable choice of either attending Stanford University this fall as a freshman, or deferring enrollment for a year in preparation for the Olympics. The world’s top distance freestyle swimmer chose the latter, opting to stay with Coach Bruce Gemmell at Nation’s Capital Swim Club through summer 2016. Ledecky made the announcement via press release, mentioning that the decision came after much discussion with Gemmell and Stanford head coach Greg Meehan. Ledecky’s mind is now free of that weighty choice and she can fully concentrate on preparing for this summer’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

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