Notre Dame and West Virginia will swim each other in a virtual meet Friday and Saturday, after each school had previously scheduled meets cancelled due to opponents’ COVID-19 protocols.
Notre Dame was scheduled to swim Pittsburgh, which paused its program while waiting out COVID-19 protocols. Minnesota is apparently in a similar position, though the Golden Gophers haven’t previously reported the cancellation.
There’s no mention of any changes on the Minnesota athletics website, and a letter sent to the community on Thursday by president Joan Gabel makes no mention of athletic alterations. Minnesota has 78 active positive student cases, and the state of Minnesota declared 3,956 new COVID-19 positives on Thursday, prompting renewed alarm from the state government.
“Due to COVID-19, we aren’t able to compete in-person this fall, and we had a virtual meet lined up for next weekend,” West Virginia coach Vic Riggs said in a team statement. “Unfortunately, I was informed on Thursday that our competition was forced to cancel. However, I also read that Notre Dame’s meet for this weekend was canceled as well, so I contacted (Notre Dame head coach) Mike (Litzinger) and asked if he would be interested in doing a virtual dual meet. Thankfully, he was as excited about it as I was.
“Our men’s and women’s teams have done such a great job this fall under very difficult circumstances. I felt it was very important to give them an opportunity to compete against another team, and now we have that opportunity. The teams are excited, and we look forward to competing this weekend.”
Back to this weekend’s virtual meet between Notre Dame and West Virginia: Each team will swim time trials at their home facilities. The times will be compared and scored at the end of each session to declare a meet winner.
“Naturally, both teams were disappointed that our head-to-head meets with Pittsburgh and Minnesota were cancelled, but this is a great solution,” Notre Dame head swim coach Mike Litzinger said in a university release. “Coach Vic Riggs from West Virginia and I connected over our similar situations, we came up with a creative solution and this is the result. I am thrilled for our athletes who have been working so hard this fall, and they are excited to show what they can do. It will be great to swim and dive against the Mountaineers.”
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Virtual meets are a great opportunity. Not what we “want,” but minus that self-centeredness, it’s a good solution.