Tule Nation Tritons fielded two swimmers at the Mesa Grand Prix meet in Arizona scheduled in April. The meet had the USA Junior National time standard as its minimum qualifying criteria. Mallory Korenwinder, and Chris NolanĀ qualified, and competed at the meet which is listed as one of six meets on the Grand Prix circuit for 2013. The Grand Prix circuit awards a cash prize to non-NCAA eligible athletes, and as a result attracts Olympians such as Tyler Clary, Ryan Lochte, Nthan Adrian, Missy Franklin Kathleen Ledecky, and Natalie Couglin to name a few, and this past Mesa Grand Prix was no exception in attracting the top athletes of the sport.
Stringent qualifying criteria follow a year when entries would close within 30 minutes of opening due to the interest in competing at the meets. Although the Grand Prix series is struggling to regain capacity, the size and participation of the meet in Mesa maintained a collegiate and international representation that remained impressive. Colligate programs that participated at this meet included such colleges as Cal Berkley, Drury University, Fresno State, Oakland University in Michigan, Southern Methodist, University of Kentucky, University of Texas (Longhorns), USC, Stanford, UC Davis, University of Virginia, University of Michigan, and Western Kentucky University. At the international level, the Mesa Grand Prix attracted participants from Argentina, Australia (East Brisbane), Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Iceland, Malta (in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily), Sweden (Linkoping Swim Club) and Venezuela.