Swimming Australia has released a statement regarding the national qualifying times for Victorian swimmers for the 2021 Australian Swimming Championships. Please see their statement below;
Good morning members, we hope this communication finds you well.
Swimming Victoria, Swimming Australia and ASCTA Victoria all understand the difficult restrictions and challenges we are facing in Victoria and in particular in metropolitan Melbourne.
With that in mind we have been collaborating on an approach for our Victorian members working towards swimming at the 2021 Australian Open Water Swimming Championships, 2021 Australian Age Swimming Championships or the 2021 Australian Swimming Championships.
We are pleased to advise that all organisations have agreed the following key action plan and approach for our Victorian athletes.
- Any athlete that achieved the qualifying time for the 2020 Australian Open Water Swimming Championships will automatically qualify for the 2021 Australian Open Water Swimming Championship events in the event (s) they achieved a QT in 2020. Please note – age eligibility will still apply so if you achieved a time in your age group in 2020 you can use that time to qualify you for your age group in 2021. E.g. if you achieved a 14 years’ time in 2020 that will make you eligible in the 15 years age group in 2021.
- Any athlete that achieved the qualifying time for the 2020 Australian Age or 2020 Australian Championship events will automatically qualify for the 2021 Australian Age and 2021 Australian Championship events in the event (s) they achieved a QT in 2020. For clarity, this includes all athletes including multi class.
Please note – age eligibility will still apply, so if you achieved a time in your age group in 2020 you can use that time to qualify you for your age group in 2021. E.g. if you achieved a 14 years’ time in 2020 that will make you eligible in the 15 years age group in 2021.
The process of applying these exemptions will be as follows:
- The 2020 Qualifying Time will be used as a support mechanism and will not need to be used to enter the January or April events until such time that Victorian meets have been exhausted and an athlete has not met the 2021 Qualifying time.
- If an athlete meets the 2021 Qualifying time, the swimmer should use that time to enter the January and April Championship Events.
- If an athlete does not meet the 2021 Qualifying time, the athlete will enter via emailing Swimming Australia from 4 January for Australian Open Water, or 9 March for April Australian Championship events.
Swimming Australia will support those athletes that have a 2020 Qualifying time and wish to use that time to enter manually.
- We are mindful that any athletes in the 13yrs females and 14yrs males events might not have competed at an Australian Age Championships to date. Between SV, SA and AV we will be looking into an alternative procedure to ensure our emerging young Victorian athletes have an opportunity to qualify. We will publish these details in due course.
These exemptions have been made and will be implemented with the intention to give our Victorian athletes the opportunity they deserve to swim at Australian Championships in January and April 2021.
If you have further queries or questions, please contact: events@vic.swimming.org.au or events@swimming.org.au
With safe and best wishes,
Leigh Russell – Swimming Australia CEO
Jason Hellwig – Swimming Victoria CEO
Gus Barnes – asctaVIC President
