UW to Compete in Talent-Filled Texas Invitational
November 28, 2007 | Men's Swimming & Diving
The UW men's swimming and diving team will head south this week to participate in the elite Texas Invitational. The three-day event will last from 10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 29, until late on Saturday, Dec. 1, at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas.
The competition, which was named as SwimmingWorldMagazine.com's Meet of the Week, will feature teams from Texas, Arizona, Arizona State, Cal State Northridge (men), Nebraska (women), Stanford, SMU, TCU and UNLV to contend against Wisconsin.
'The format of the meet parallels the set up of the NCAA Championship meet and the Big Ten Championship meet,' head coach Eric Hansen said. '[The Texas Invite] is a prelude to the NCAAs.'
During the event, the Badgers will take aim at setting up as many individuals as they can for future success.
'[As a team], we prepare for a couple days and our goal is to have some [athletes] pick up some NCAA cuts and provisional cuts,' Hansen said.
The set up of the meet will have prelims for all events start at 10 a.m. on each of the three days, with finals for the events starting at 6 p.m.
On Thursday, the 100-yard butterfly, 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard IM, 50-yard freestyle, 200-yard freestyle relay, 400-yard medley relay, men's 1-meter dive and women 's 3-meter dive will take place.
The 400-yard IM, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard medley relay, 800-yard freestyle relay, women's 1-meter dive and men 's 3-meter dive will all occur on Friday.
Finally, on Saturday the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard butterfly, 1,650-yard freestyle, 400-yard freestyle relay and the men's and women's platform dives will transpire.
With all the events and tough competitors participating in them, UW will find it tough to come out with a team victory in the meet. Hansen, however, stressed that the pursuit of individual success will be the main objective of the week.
'The team's score is irrelevant; there will be some professional swimmers in the meet as well, so it is not strictly a college meet,' Hansen said. He later reiterated, 'Our goal is to qualify swimmers for the NCAAs.'
The Texas Invitational will start at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 29, and finish on Saturday night, Dec. 1. The meet will take place in Austin, Texas, at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
