March 5, 2009

From Navy Sports Information

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Navy's Thuy-Mi Dinh (Jr., Anaheim, Calif.) and Tara Chapmon (Jr., Virginia Beach, Va.) have been invited to compete at the NCAA Women's Swimming Championship that will be held March 19-21 in College Station, Texas. Their qualification became official late Wednesday night with the announcement of the field of competitors by the NCAA.

This is the second consecutive year in which Navy has made Patriot League women's swimming history. Last year, Dinh became the first women's swimmer in league history to advance to the NCAA Championship with an automatic qualifying time, while this year marks the first time a league program has advanced multiple swimmers to the national championship.

Dinh also will become the first women's swimmer in league history to compete at more than one NCAA Championship in a career.

"First and foremost, we are very excited and proud of what Thuy-Mi and Tara have accomplished this year," said Navy women's swimming head coach John Morrison. "Being able to compete alongside and against the top swimmers in the country has been their goal since the start of the year, and we are very happy that they were able to accomplish what they set out to do. It was only through a lot of hard work and effort that they were able to do this.

"Additionally, this is a great step forward for our program. We want to qualify athletes for the NCAA Championship on an annual basis. Being able to do this for the second year in a row, and this time with multiple swimmers, is the start of a great foundation for where we want to be as a program."

Navy's Thuy-Mi Dinh

Dinh will compete in the 50 freestyle event at the NCAA Championship, with Chapmon taking part in both the 500 and 1,650 freestyle events. Dinh's provisional qualifying time of 22.36 places her 22nd out of the 65 swimmers who will compete in the 50 free. Chapmon, meanwhile, is seeded 42nd in the 1,650 free with her time of 16:26.84 and 50th in the 500 free with her clocking of 4:45.12. A total of 46 athletes will compete in the 1,650 free, with the field for 500 free event consisting of 68 swimmers.

The 50 and 500 freestyle events will be held on the opening day of the championship, while the 1,650 free will be contested on the final day of the meet.

Chapmon earned Patriot League Women's Swimmer-of-the-Meet accolades in both 2008 and `09 when she won the 200, 500 and 1,650 freestyle events at the two championship meets. She broke her own school and league records in winning the three events at this year's championship as she increased her tally of career league individual event titles won during her career to seven. Dinh, who also competed at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swimming Team Trials, has won the 50 freestyle title at the Patriot League Championship in each of her three seasons and holds the Navy and league record in the event. She broke her own records in winning the 50 free this year and has totaled five league individual event titles during her career.

The field for the NCAA Men's Swimming Championship will be announced the night of March 11. Navy's Adam Meyer (Jr., Bethesda, Md.) has already posted an automatic qualifying time in the 200 butterfly and will compete in a trio of events at the meet that will be held March 26-28 in College Station. The NCAA Zone Diving Championship, which serves as the qualifying event for all divers at both men's and women's NCAA Championship meets, will be held March 13-15 at sites across the country.