{"id":464847,"date":"2021-03-12T11:24:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T18:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=464847"},"modified":"2021-03-12T11:24:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T18:24:09","slug":"swim-poll-of-the-week-53-think-virginia-will-win-ncaa-division-i-womens-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/swim-poll-of-the-week-53-think-virginia-will-win-ncaa-division-i-womens-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Swim Poll of the Week: 53% Think Virginia Will Win NCAA Division I Women’s Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the Swim Poll of the Week for Friday, March 12, 2021, sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products<\/a>. In our last poll, we wanted to know:\u00a0Who do you think will win the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships<\/strong>?<\/b><\/p>\n

Every team and every athlete has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but, perhaps, no college team has been affected as much as the University of Virginia women\u2019s swimming and diving team.<\/p>\n

As the women\u2019s swimming world was coming off of a dominating three-peat by Stanford (2017-18-19), Virginia rose to the top team in the nation last season, only to see the women\u2019s NCAA Division I Championships canceled.<\/p>\n

After finishing sixth in 2019, the Cavaliers lost their chance to prove they could unseat Stanford and push past Cal and the other contenders.<\/p>\n

2021 brings an opportunity for Virginia to showcase its best team in school history\u2014and possibly keep it going for a number of years, ushering in a new rivalry with Stanford. Virginia already features underclassmen Kate Douglass<\/strong> and Alex Walsh<\/strong>, while Stanford will add Regan Smith<\/strong><\/a> and Torri Huske<\/strong> next year to what should be another formidable team.<\/p>\n

Usually, Swimming World<\/em> puts together its predictions of the top 10 teams, including statistical analysis that includes the number of points lost and returning from last year\u2019s teams, giving its readers a realistic expectation of what should take place.<\/p>\n

This year, without the championships being held in 2020, that same kind of analysis wouldn\u2019t be appropriate\u2014or accurate. Many of the college teams have only swum in a handful of meets after spending a lot of time out of the water because of different COVID-19 protocols in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n