Swimmer Owen Lloyd Loses ACC Title Over ‘The Dumbest Rule in Swimming’

North Carolina State’s Owen Lloyd came home to finish first in the 1,650-yard freestyle title at the ACC Championships but was stripped of the win after violating rules in his celebration. Following finishing the race before all other competitors, Lloyd ventured to the adjacent lane to celebrate with his teammate. In his seemingly routine and unknowing action, Lloyd was stripped of the win for violating Rule 2 Section 5 of the NCAA rulebook, which states that “a swimmer who changes lanes during a heat shall be disqualified.”

“I just started crying because I was so upset that all that hard work had been kind of taken away from me by such a strange situation,” Lloyd said after the race. “That was a huge moment for me to become an ACC champion after really kind of climbing up the ranks throughout the team, throughout the conference and nationally, as well…That did not cross my mind at all that potentially I’d be disrespecting them or showing emotion that I shouldn’t while they were still racing. I was kind of just letting it flow.”

The teammate Lloyd was going to celebrate with was Ross Dant, who finished second and became the eventual winner of the race after Lloyd’s disqualification. Dant said that he would give the first-place trophy and spot on the podium to his teammate, citing his thoughts on the rule and how he believes Lloyd is the real winner.

“I think that’s the dumbest rule in swimming,” Dant said. “Owen beat me fair and square, he should be on that podium. He was excited. That’s a huge win for him, right? He earned that. He earned that, and that’s his emotion… He works so hard every day. He is going to be on that No. 1 trophy. I am not going to stand up there.”

Though beating his teammate by two seconds, his breaking of the rule causes an automatic disqualification of the race. The rule is in place to make sure other swimmers who have completed the race do not interfere with others still trying to finish, but that wasn’t the case with Lloyd and Dant. As teammates who had both just finished first and second the duo wanted an immediate celebration while still in the pool, but it broke the rules and jeopardized one of their most important races of the year.

Both the ACC conference and NCAA as a whole have yet to comment about the issue, but as it stands Dant still officially holds the conference title. With a win, Lloyd would have secured his spot in the NCAA Championships, but instead, he is forced to sit in defeat for breaking an arbitrary rule. It is unclear whether a ruling change is in the future or even possible, so as it stands now Lloyd will miss the 2024 Division 1 Championships which take place from March 27 to 30 in Indianapolis.