The World Cup Meet, scheduled for the new University of Maryland Aquatic Center, is rapidly approaching. The 2-day meet will be held on November 17 and 18. It is swum in short course meters, which we do not see much around USA Swimming venues but which is the course of choice for most of our local summer leagues. At last year's meet in the United States at Texas A&M, Jenny Thompson broke two short course world records and several American records were also set. So it is very fast swimming!!! This year's meet will consist of 17 events each day with prelims starting at 10 AM and finals at 6:30 PM. Events will include 50s in all the strokes and 100 M Individual Medley as well as the standard distance events you would expect to see at a PVS meet. Events swum by the men on Day 1 will be swum by women on Day 2 and vice-versa.
The Meet Directors are Murray Stephens, head coach of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, and Mike Unger, USA Swimming National Events Director. The meet will be sanctioned by USA Swimming and PVS. The Washington / Baltimore Regional 2012 Coalition is sponsoring this meet in the local area. This organization consists of business and sports leaders in our area that have come together for the purpose of attracting the 2012 Summer Olympics to this area. This is just one of several events over the coming months that this coalition will sponsor in an attempt to demonstrate this area's commitment and willingness to support major Olympic sporting events. The UMD Aquatic Center has room for approximately 800 spectators and Potomac Valley will be expected to fill a goodly number of those seats. We do not anticipate any problem, however, in filling the house for no doubt the biggest swim meet ever in the Metropolitan Washington area.
Potomac Valley is presently considering several ticketing options for our members and others in the PVS area. We expect to unveil our plans before the end of this month. All member clubs will be notified in writing and we will make the same information available on this site as well. If you can not wait to secure your tickets, however, you may order them right now by calling Meadowbrook Aquatic Center at (410) 433-8300. Ticket prices over the phone are $5 for prelims ($3 under 12) and $8 for finals ($5 under 12). We will be letting our member clubs know about our volunteer requirements at the same time we release our ticket information. At a minimum we will be required to have 20 - 25 volunteers for each session and those folks will have free access to that session.
As we approach this meet, continue to watch this site for more information about the World Cup format, prize money - yes, there are big bucks involved in the World Cup, who will be participating, and other relevant facts. Suffice it to say that for this international series of meets, the automatic qualifying time is generally faster than the USA Swimming Senior Championship qualifying time. For your further information, we are providing a Link to Information Posted by USA Swimming regarding this and other meets in the World Cup series.
Stay tuned for ticketing and volunteer information and for updates on the meet itself as we get closer to November.
Information on how to volunteer to officiate at this meet is already available on the USA Swimming website. For officials holding a National Certification, a form to apply is downloadable from this site