USA Swimming Releases National Junior Team Selection Criteria

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

USA Swimming announced Tuesday afternoon the qualifying procedures for the 2017-2018 National Junior Team, which will consist of athletes 18 years old or younger on Sept. 1, 2017. The team will include the top two athletes in each individual event and the top four in the 100 and 200 free, along with others based on world rankings.

Other athletes eligible to be selected include females ranked in the top 75 in the world in any individual Olympic event (long course) and males ranked in the top 100. Times may have been swum at any competition between January 1 and August 31.

At least 26 and no more than 40 swimmer will be selected for both the women’s and men’s teams. Athletes may already be in college if they are still 18 years old, but no one who has swum an individual event at an Olympics, World Championships or Pan Pacific Championships or is a member of the senior U.S. National Team is eligible.

National Junior Team Program Director Mitch Dalton posted to Twitter a chart showing the times required to make the National Junior Team over the past eight years, with each year’s team based on similar criteria.

2017-2018 National Junior Team Selection Criteria now posted. Read full selection procedures, but this chart helps!https://t.co/3DDcMmHPKY pic.twitter.com/o8a1bZRTQJ

— Mitch Dalton (@MitchDaltonNJT) January 17, 2017

Also posted to USA Swimming’s website are the selection criteria for the FINA World Junior Championships, which will be held at the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis Aug. 23-28. The selection meet for that event, along with the FINA World Championships and World University Games, will occur at that same Indianapolis pool June 27 through July 1.

Not all National Junior Team members are eligible to compete in the World Championships. Male athletes must have be 18 or younger at the end of 2017 (i.e., born in 1999, 2000, 2001 or 2002), and female athletes can be no older than 17 on Dec. 31, 2017 (can be born in 2000, 2001, 2002 or 2003). That means many current high school seniors and even some current female high school juniors will be ineligible for qualification.

Among those swimmers eligible, the top finisher in each Olympic event at Nationals, along with the top four in both the 100 and 200 free, will be selected. If space allows (maximum of 26 women and 26 men), the No. 2 eligible finisher in all Olympic events will be added, followed by the top finisher in non-Olympic events.

If swimmers decline spots on the team, USA Swimming will take the next-highest placing eligible swimmer through the sixth. That is, no athlete that finishes as the seventh-highest eligible swimmer an event at Nationals will be eligible for a spot on the team. The only exception is the 100 and 200 free, where athletes up through eighth will be considered.

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