Men's Swimming Heads to Princeton for Invitational

The Columbia men’s swimming and diving team is heading to Princeton to compete in the Princeton Invitational on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This year’s invitational should be especially competitive with two top-10 nationally-ranked teams from Florida making the trip up to New Jersey.
The Princeton Invitational is one of the top early-season competitions in collegiate swimming and diving. Last year, Princeton welcomed Penn State, Brown, Pittsburgh, Columbia, Rider, Bucknell, and Harvard. Penn State dominated the competition, winning with a total of 1065 points, 272.5 points ahead of second-place Princeton. In this highly competitive invitational, Columbia took fifth place with 402 points, and in specific events only placed as high as fourth. Some notable results were the Lions coming in fourth in the 400-yard freestyle relay, Hyun Lee coming in fourth in the 200-yard butterfly and seventh in the 100 yard freestyle, and Ross Ramone finishing in fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke.
This year the competition will be even stronger thanks to the sixth-ranked University of Florida men’s swimming and diving team. The Gators are expected to dominate both men’s and women’s swimming this weekend, even though most of Florida’s top men’s swimmers are heading to the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center for the 2008 U.S. Short Course Nationals.
The Tigers, which are ranked 22nd nationally, are expected to finish at least second, in a similar fashion to last year. Princeton has been very successful early in the season, winning the Rutgers Invitational as well as defeating both Cornell and Penn. The Tigers won the Rutgers Invitational with 1345 points, 192 points ahead of second-place Fordham, thanks to terrific performances by Michael Carter, Robert Griest, and others. Columbia will face Princeton at home on Feb. 13.
While many of the schools attending, such as Columbia, are returning competitors, Florida and Utah will be competing in the invitational for the first time. The Utah men’s swimming and diving team was picked to finish fourth in the Mountain West preseason poll and should also provide some strong competition for Columbia.
This will be the last competition for the Lions before they can rest up during most of winter break. However, Columbia will not be able to enjoy the full break as its next meet after the Princeton Invitational will be against Bucknell at home on Jan. 18.