By Spencer Penland on SwimSwam
2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships
Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2026 McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA Defending Champions: Virginia (5x) Championship Central Preview Index Psych Sheet Live Stream Live Results Live Recaps Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2 Finals: Day 1Day 2 prelims just concluded in Atlanta, which means it’s time to overreact.
Not Enough Prelims Best Times
My initial takeaway from this morning is that the elimination of the ‘B’ finals didn’t lead to faster swims in prelims. Now, to be clear, the time to make the ‘A’ final was faster than last year in all 4 events, but that wasn’t unexpected, since college swimming as a whole is faster this year.
What I mean by the prelims swims weren’t faster is that the majority of swimmers who made it to finals added time this morning. With only 8 swimmers advancing to finals, we were thinking we might see more prelims best times than usual, but that was not the case.
The 100 fly is the best example of this. Only 1 of the 8 finals qualifiers dropped time this morning. Coincidentally, it was the 8th place finisher, Cal’s Annie Jia, who dropped 0.06 seconds from her seed time. Of note, Indiana’s Alex Shackell didn’t drop time in the 100 fly this morning, but she did tie her season best of 49.95, so it wasn’t an add either.
In the 400 IM, only 3 of the finals qualifiers dropped time this morning, which was the same as the 200 free. The 100 breast bucked this trend, as 5 of the 8 finalists dropped time this morning, including all 4 swimmers 5th-8th, which is significant because those drops directly led to their qualifying for finals at all.
This effect bled into the relays as well, even though those are timed finals. Still, the teams that swam this morning largely added from their seeds. Of the 19 200 free relay teams that swam this morning, only 3 dropped from their seed, while Arizona tied their seed.
No “Statement” Swims
Another thing that stuck out this morning was that no one threw down a really nasty time this morning. There were great swims this morning to be sure, like McKenzie Siroky‘s 56.93 100 breast and Ella Jansen‘s 4:00.24 400 IM, but nothing really special happened. Last year, we had Gretchen Walsh go for it in prelims and put up a 47.21 100 fly, which was an NCAA Record at the time.
Virginia Doesn’t Look As Good As Usual
Bold to say, I know, but Virginia just didn’t seem that impressive this morning. They have the most finalists tonight, 6, which goes without saying is great, but they were also projected to have 6 finalists today. Also, 5 of their 6 finalists added time this morning.
This is, of course, an example of Virginia being a victim of their own success. They have the most finalists and, barring a shocking disaster tonight, they’ll expand their lead over the field today. My point is simply that Virginia came into this meet as a very dominant favorite, seeded to win by something like 200 points, and even though they’re leading, it just doesn’t feel that dominant right now.
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