Jan. 7, 2004

Columbia, Mo. - The University of Missouri men's and women's swimming teams will be meeting up for the first time in 2004 as they head to Tucson, Arizona on January 9 to compete in their Christmas Training Meet. The men and women's diving squads will be in Orlando, Fla. at the Orlando YMCA from January 2-12 before heading to the St. Peters Recreation Complex in St. Peters, Mo., January13-14 to finish up their training session.

The men (1-2) will be competing against #7 Arizona and Purdue (1-2) while the #22 Missouri women (4-2) will be competing against #6 Arizona and Northern Arizona University (5-2).

In Arizona's last meet, the Texas Invitational, the men and women's teams combined to set 16 qualifying times for the 2004 NCAA Championships.

For the Missouri swim teams this will be their first competition against Arizona under the helm of Head Coach Brian Hoffer, but Arizona is a familiar team to Hoffer from his time as an assistant coach at Arizona State.

"Both of Arizona's teams are very deep and talented and that is why they are able to consistently be one of the top teams in the country. Frank Busch is a great coach as he is able to coach both the men and women and is kind of a model of where I would like our teams to be. We are looking forward to the opportunity to swim against such talented teams from the Big Ten and Pac-10 Conferences help us see how we stand up against them."

While the swim teams are enjoying sunny Tucson, the diving teams have been in Orlando, Fla. since January 2 working through their own training sessions.

During their 10-day training trip the divers will spend six hours a day working to perfect their diving routines. The divers days are broken into three sessions of workouts. Every morning consists of diving drills where the divers, under Head Diving Coach Greg Triefenbach's supervision, will work on everything involved in their dives from their beginning hurdle to the flips and twists until they enter the water. The afternoon and evening sessions will consist of a combination of dry land exercises, calisthenics, and tumbling drills.

During the 10-day span, the divers are given one day of rest where they will be able to tour Orlando and go to Universal Studios where one of the team's alumni is hosting a fundraising event to help provide new training equipment for Mizzou's new pool.