The Board of Directors of the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union approved a change in in the Girls State Swimming and Diving Meet to a preliminary-final format at its January 10th meeting.

The prelim/final format will begin with the 2018 State Swimming and Diving Meet November 2-3 at the Marshalltown YMCA/YWCA. The new format will feature three sessions, beginning with the preliminary swimming meet taking place on Friday evening. The State Diving Meet will move from Friday to the second session on Saturday morning with the State meet culminating in the swimming finals that will take place Saturday evening.

“A significant amount of input and discussion over the last year went into this decision,” said IGHSAU Executive Director Jean Berger. “This is an exciting change to the State Swimming and Diving Meet and girls high school swimming in Iowa. More swimmers and divers will now have the opportunity to participate in the State Meet experience and the new qualifying procedures will make every regular season meet important.” Under the new prelim/format change, the number of state swimming qualifiers will increase from 24 to 32. The number of state diving qualifiers will increase from 30 to 32.

In this format, the 32 state qualifiers in each individual swimming event will compete in four preliminary heats on Friday night. The 16 fastest preliminary times will advance to the Saturday evening finals. The 9th-through-16th fastest times in each individual swimming event will compete in the consolation final while the eight fastest times from the preliminary heat will swim in the championship heat. The relays will be timed finals on the Saturday evening session. Other than the two additional qualifiers, there are no format changes to the State Diving Meet.

An overview of the new state meet structure with tentative time standards and a tentative 2018 State Swimming and Diving Meet schedule can be viewed by clicking  here.