ATLANTA, Ga. – The Old Dominion University swimming and diving team heads to Atlanta, Ga. to compete in the 2014 Conference USA swimming and diving championships that start Wednesday Feb. 26 and finish up on Saturday, March 1.
The championships will be held at the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center, site of the 1996 XXVI Summer Olympic Games.
This will be the Monarchs’ first-ever time competing in the C-USA swimming and diving championships.
The event starts on Friday with the preliminaries of the men’s 1-meter dive and the finals of the 200-medley relay and the 800-free relay.
The championships will continue throughout the rest of the week with the prelims in the morning and the finals starting at 6 p.m.
Junior Yesim Giresunlu goes into the tournament as the No. 3 seed in the women’s 500-freestyle and the No. 4 seed in the 1650 freestyle. Giresunlu owns the ODU school record in both events.
Fellow junior Rachel Eckert had the second-best point total of all C-USA divers in the 3-meter dive in 2014, but is the No. 5 seed heading into the championships, which will begin on Thursday for the 3-meter dive.
Freshman Julia Vido is seeded No. 7 in the 100-breaststroke while Colleen VandePoel, also a freshman, is the No. 7 seed in the 100-backstroke
Men’s senior Sidni Hoxha is the top seed in the 50 and 100-free events and has the second-best time in the 200-free in C-USA this season. Vitor Sa is the No. 6 seed in the 100-free.
Bernardo Figuiredo is the No. 3 seed in the 500-free while Hoxha is the No. 3 seed in the 200-free and Sa is the No. 4 seed. Figuiredo is also the No. 3 seed in the 1650-free with Tyler Anderson the No. 5 seed and Andrew Cook the No. 9 seed.
Freshman Jason Zeidler is the No. 5 seed in the 100-breastroke while Eddie Hubert sits in the No. 9 spot. In the 200-breastroke, Jason Haigh is the No. 4 seed while Zeidler is the No. 8 seed.
Sophomore Reed Mathews rounds out the ODU seeds, as he is the No. 4 seed in the 200-fly.
The competition starts on Wednesday at 2 p.m. with the men’s 1-meter diving prelims and continues Wednesday night at 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday the morning session will start at 10 a.m. and the finals will begin at 6 p.m.