The University of Iowa has announced that it will be reinstating the women’s swimming and diving program, even though it had it announced it would discontinue the sport earlier during the 2020-21 academic year.

Iowa initially announced it would be cutting four sports as a product of the lost revenue relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to women’s swimming and diving, the athletic department also discontinued men’s swimming and diving, men’s gymnastics and men’s tennis.

There was no mention of any of the other three programs being reinstated.

Every student-athlete in all 24 sports at Iowa has experienced challenges and uncertainty since the pandemic began. This has been especially true for the men and women in the four sports we announced would be discontinued after this season,” said athletic director Gary Barta. “The women’s swimming lawsuit brought forward last September, combined with the recent court order mandating the continuation of the sport during the legal process, has created additional uncertainty that could last several months or even years.

“We made the decision the right thing to do was to re-instate the women’s swimming and diving program and remove any uncertainty moving forward for our current student-athletes as well as high school swimmers considering attending the University of Iowa.”

The swimming and diving team will be reinstated as a member of the NCAA and B1G.