Owen Lloyd, a senior at North Carolina State University, was disqualified for a technicality after swimming in a 1,650-yard freestyle event at the Atlantic Coast Conferences championship. Lloyd was seen going between lanes to celebrate with his teammate Ross Dant while other swimmers were still completing the event, causing his disqualification. 

On the last night of the ACC championship that took place in late February, Lloyd finished the freestyle event with a time of 14:37.04. While he took in what just happened, hearing the crowd cheering for his win excitedly, he took off his goggles and went between lanes, and then fell into Dant’s lane, who finished second to Lloyd to celebrate the win. But after the event, an announcer in the loudspeakers declared that Lloyd was disqualified. 

According to the NCAA rulebook, Rule 2 Section 5B states, “A swimmer who changes lanes during a heat shall be disqualified.” Lloyd, elated over his accomplishment, went into his teammate’s lane, which caused him to be stripped of his first place title and a place to compete in the NCAA championship. While the celebration was bound to happen due to him winning first and beating his personal record, this is the rule that disqualified him.  
While there are many controversial things people are saying about the rule and even a petition to reinstate Lloyd’s title, Dant Lloyd told The Athletic, “That’s what we get in the sport of swimming when we do well. We train all year for a moment like that, and to have him disqualified is the dumbest thing ever. He works so hard every day. He is going to be on that No. 1 trophy. I am not going to stand up there.” 

He also mentions, “I think that’s the dumbest rule in swimming.” 

Dant Lloyd isn’t the only one who thinks that; Amy Van Dyken-Rouen, a color commentator for the races posted to, formerly known as Twitter, talking about what happened. She mentions in the video, “Did he interfere with anybody? No, he did not. He was in either lane four or five, I can’t remember. And his teammate was also in lane four or five, I can’t remember. The person finishing was in lane eight. Now listen I am a rule follower. I love rules because I love to follow it.” 

She continued to go on and say in her video, “So, if you called Owen Lloyd for celebrating and interfering, which he did not, you got to call the back-strokers for diving in, which you did not. So, if you’re gonna call one, you call them all.”