The 2021 NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championship has been canceled, the NCAA announced on Wednesday after a meeting of the Division III Management Committee.
The committee also announced the cancellation of men’s and women’s basketball post-season competitions, men’s and women’s athletics, men’s and women’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s wrestling.
In making the decision, the Committee did not point out the impossibility of safely hosting a championship; instead, they pointed to the lack of participation in winter sports by D3 members as the key factor in their decision.
The NCAA has established minimum team limits competing in 60% of teams competing in basketball, swimming and diving, and athletics to host championship events, with a limit of 70% in hockey and wrestling.
Among the impacted sports, male and female swimming had the lowest percentage of programs that commit to compete this season. The wrestling had the highest score with 61.8%.
| 60% limit | 70% limit | ||||||||
| MBB | WBB | MSW | WSW | MTI | WTI | MIH | WIH | WRE | |
| Sponsorship | 416 | 430 | 238 | 265 | 291 | 297 | 84 | 67 | 109 |
| Yes | 48.6% | 46.2% | 43.1% | 42.0% | 48.8% | 49.3% | 52.3% | 51.4% | 61.8% |
| No | 51.4% | 53.8% | 56.9% | 58.0% | 51.2% | 50.7% | 47.7% | 48.6% | 38.2% |
“Today, we made the difficult decision to cancel our Division III winter championships. Although some institutions have managed to return safely to sport, recent data from the declaration form shows that more than half of our division has not returned to winter sports practice and competition to be in a position to participate in the NCAA national championship, ”he said. Fayneese Miller, President of the Council of Presidents and President at Hamline. “It was a very difficult decision to make and we are sad about that. However, none of our winter sports meets the participation limits established by the Championships Committee for holding a championship. We are committed to ensuring that our student-athletes have the best experience possible and, for us, this means having a significant number of competitions. We hope this is possible for our spring championship. “
Earlier in the day, NAIA also announced that it was canceling its swimming and diving championships this season. Division II and Division I of the NCAA have not announced the future of their championship competitions.
This marks the second consecutive season that the meeting will not take place after the 2020 edition was canceled less than a week from the competition, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.
The competition was scheduled to take place from March 17 to 20 at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash., Organized by Pacific Lutheran University, in what would be the first time the championships had been held on the West Coast since its inception in 1975.
The Division III Committee confirmed several format changes for the October meeting due to the pandemic, including reducing the meeting’s capacity to 75% of its normal number (allowing 239 women and 195 men to compete) and postponing the date selection announcement until March 10. In August, the committee canceled all autumn sports championships.
In what have been a very difficult 10 months for high school programs across the country, several top-level D3 diving and swimming teams have chosen not to compete during the 2020-21 season, although at least one, Denison, recently announced a schedule competition.
The 2021 Pac-12 Swimming & Diving Championships was also scheduled to take place on Federal Way, but has since been moved to Houston.