College coaches in the United States are praising the NCAA\u2019s decision to move the 800 freestyle relay to a separate day at the men\u2019s and women\u2019s Division I championships next year, thereby expanding the meet to seven sessions over four days. The event will still be held as a timed final, but will take place on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
More than half of college coaches who participated in a survey by the College Swim Coaches Association approved the proposal before it was submitted to the NCAA. The relay was originally swum as the final event of the second day of the three-day meet, and often presented issues with athletes who were faced with three 200-yard freestyles in one day, a demanding lineup for even the most prepared swimmer. <\/p>\n
Though athletes have done the best with the schedule for decades, many conference meets started putting the 800 free relay on a separate day about a decade ago. That move resulted in a few American records in the long relay by Georgia and Texas, among others, at their respective conference meets. However, the times at the NCAA championships in the 800 free relay tended to be slower among the top teams than times posted at the conference meet, largely due to the compact schedule at the NCAA meet.<\/p>\n
The NCAA also voted to move the 200 medley relay to the end of Friday\u2019s session at the NCAA championships, which will have an impact on that event but not as much as moving the 800 free relay will have. No other events will be changed on the schedule, so Thursday\u2019s and Saturday\u2019s events remain intact, and Friday\u2019s individual events will stay as they are.<\/p>\n
At the University of Florida, 15 squads have won the long relay on the women\u2019s and men\u2019s teams. Gregg Troy<\/strong> was coach of three of those teams between 2005 and 2013, and fell short in a few close races where his athletes might have been completely drained by the end of the session. Case in point: The Gator men won the 800 free relay on the first day of the 2015 Southeastern Conference championships with a 6:12.85, but finished seventh at the NCAA championships with a time that was five seconds slower.<\/p>\n Troy is all for moving the 800 free relay, but doesn\u2019t think the NCAA should stop there.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a step in the right direction that will provide for a better athlete experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe there should be a complete review of the events with maybe even two relays on the first day.\u201d<\/p>\n Georgia also has a rich history in the 800 free relay. The women have set the American record numerous times in Jack Bauerle\u2019s<\/strong> stint as coach, and have won the NCAA title seven times since 2001.<\/p>\n “I think this is a major change,\u201d Bauerle said. \u201cIt’s going to impact the times for the 800 free relay because everyone is going to be fresh. Where I think we’ll also see an impact is on the (revised) third day. It won’t be as long, it won’t be as draining, so the performances on the last days might be even better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" College coaches in the United States are praising the NCAA\u2019s decision to move the 800 freestyle relay to a separate day at the men\u2019s and women\u2019s Division I championships next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":59027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[54332,1054,1521],"class_list":["post-153146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-800-free-relay","tag-gregg-troy","tag-jack-bauerle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n