What events are there in swimming?

Now that you know what is the difference between Short Course Yards (SCY) vs Long Course Meters (LCM) based on my previous blog post, let's have a look at what individual events are available.

• Free = Freestyle
• Back = Backstroke
• Breast = Breaststroke
• Fly = Butterfly
• IM = Individual Medley
  Swimmer does all of the 4 strokes, in the order of Fly → Back → Breast → Free.
  100 IM is only available for the younger age groups (10 & Under and 11-12 years) and for obvious reasons, it is only available in the SCY format (LCM pools are 50 meters in length, so the minimum distance for an IM would be 200-meters).

If you would like to know the finer details of what is a "legal" stroke, you could refer to USA Swimming's rulebook (this is the same rulebook that the Swim Officials refer to).
The 2020 rulebook can be seen here - pages 19-23 shows what is a legal start, stroke, turn & finish for each of the events. 

Although I have not listed it above (as it's not officially tracked by USA Swimming), if you have a child who is 8 & under, the younger kids do have 25 yard events during some swim meets in Short Course season (e.g. 25-yard freestyle). 

The longer distance events (e.g. 1000 Free, 1650 yards/1500m Free, 200 Back/Breast/Fly, 400 IM) are only available once you reach the 11-12 year age group.

From my own experience within my local LSC (Local Swimming Committee), once the swimmer reaches the 13-14 year age group, the only "50" event a swimmer does in a swim meet became limited to just the 50 free.  But once they become a "senior" (15 & over), you do have more opportunities to race in 50 events for the back, breast & fly - but do note your swimmer may not have an opportunity to do those events for awhile after 13 years of age.

If you have a young swimmer, it's probably a good idea to start with the shorter distance events in their first swim meets (e.g. 50 Free / Back / Breast / Fly) and then add on longer events as time goes by.  It's probably a good idea to have your swimmer do the 200 Y Free first before even attempting to try the 500 Y Free.  It is actually not unusual to find that in order to compete in the 500 Y Free event at a swim meet, the swimmer needs to have a certain minimum time standard in the 200 Y Free (e.g. B Time in the 200 Y Free).  I will talk about Time Standards in another post.  But if you're unsure of anything, please reach out to your coach.

The 1650 yards / 1500 meters Free event is commonly known as the "mile" event.  It can be a grueling race that tests the swimmer's endurance, since 1650 Y in a SCY pool would be 66 laps & 1500 M in a LCM pool would be 30 laps.

For longer distance events (500 Y Free, 1000 Y/800 M Free, 1650 Y/1500 M Free), because of the number of laps involved, it is usually a requirement to have lap counters that shows the number of laps to the swimmer during their races as they make their turns.  The swimmer usually needs to provide their own lap counters and also their own timers for such events (either their swim team friends or a parent) - so be prepared to step up.  I will cover some information of what to expect during a swim meet in a separate post.

Until next time, keep on cheering for your swimmers! 🏊🏊🏊