Four Iowa Hawkeyes will head to the NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships this week in Greensboro, N.C. It's a tremendous accomplishment, given the year that they had.

On Aug. 21, Iowa announced women's and men's swimming, men's tennis and men's gymnastics would be cut as a result of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result, many women's swimmers entered the transfer portal. Following a Title IX lawsuit, a court-ordered reinstatement of the program came as a surprise to the athletes on Feb. 15.

On this episode of the On Iowa Podcast, Iowa's Alyssa Graves and Mallory Jump talk to The Gazette's Leah Vann about what it's like to compete for a school where they feel unwanted, how they balanced competing at the highest level with exploring the transfer portal, their reaction to the program's reinstatement and how pandemic protocols added another layer of stress to an already difficult situation.