Seven winter championships to be televised

Published 11:24 pm Wednesday, February 8, 2012

CHICAGO — For the fifth consecutive year, BTN will televise seven winter Big Ten Championships, including men’s and women’s swimming and diving, wrestling, men’s and women’s indoor track and field and men’s and women’s gymnastics. Every event will be produced in high definition, including live coverage of the entire Big Ten Men’s Gymnastics Championships, the final rounds of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships and the final session of the Big Ten Women’s Gymnastics Championships.

Coverage begins at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, with the Big Ten Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships from the University of Iowa. The Big Ten Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships will air at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 3, from Iowa City, Iowa.

BTN’s coverage of Big Ten Wrestling Championships will be carried live at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 4, from the campus of Purdue University.

The Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships will air at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 10. The University of Nebraska will host both the men’s and women’s events.

Saturday, March 24, BTN will televise the first session of the Big Ten Women’s Gymnastics Championships at 6 p.m., followed by the second session live at 7 p.m. Iowa will host both men’s and women’s events. The network will have live coverage of the Big Ten Men’s Gymnastics Championships on consecutive nights at 8 p.m. Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7.

The Big Ten currently has 41 teams ranked in the top 25 nationally in Olympic sports programs for the winter season, including top-20 programs in men’s gymnastics (No. 2 Illinois, No. 3 Penn State, No. 4 Ohio State, No. 6 Minnesota, No. 8 Michigan, No. 11 Nebraska, No. 12 Iowa), women’s gymnastics (No. 8 Nebraska, No. 10 Penn State, No. 11 Ohio State, No. 19 Illinois), men’s swimming and diving (No. 4 Michigan, No. 9 Ohio State, No. 11 Indiana, No. 14 Iowa, No. 16 Minnesota, No. 17 Purdue), women’s swimming and diving (No. 12 Indiana, No. 14 Ohio State, No. 15 Minnesota, No. 17 Michigan, No. 19 Wisconsin, No. 20 Penn State), men’s indoor track and field (No. 10 Minnesota, No. 12 Indiana, No. 13 Nebraska, No. 15 Ohio State, No. 17 Wisconsin, No. 20 Iowa), women’s indoor track and field (No. 18 Ohio State) and wrestling (No. 2 Penn State, No. 4 Minnesota, No. 5 Iowa, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 7 Illinois, No. 8 Nebraska, No. 11 Michigan, No. 18 Northwestern).

The complete television schedule for the Big Ten Winter Championships appears below. For more information, go to www.btn.com or www.bigten.org.