TIPS FOR NEW SWIM PARENTS

I have previously covered various elements of a Prelims/Finals meet in my earlier posts.  One final term I would like to introduce about a Prelims/Finals meet is the " Swim-off ".   A swim-off is required to break a tie for certain swimmers who have finished the Prelims of an event with the same swim time for a certain seeding position. Using an example of a SCY Prelims/Finals meet where the top 16 qualify for the A/B Finals, a swim-off would be required in the following scenarios: a) After Prelims, two swimmers finished with the same swim time for the 8th position.  A swim-off is required to seed the faster swimmer as 8th (& hence qualifying for the A-Final) and the other as 9th (to be assigned to the B-Final) b) After Prelims, two swimmers finished with the same time for the 16th position.   A swim-off is required to seed the faster swimmer as 16th (& hence qualifying for the B-Final) and the other as the first Alternate . c) After Prelims, two s...

There are two other terms you would need to know for a Prelims/Finals meet :  Alternates and Scratching . If your swimmer qualifies for the Finals, the meet announcer generally makes an announcement to call out the names of the swimmers who have qualified and the two " ALTERNATES ".  The meet organizers would also print out the event results and they will be posted on a designated wall within the venue.  Here is the important part:  if for whatever reason your swimmer cannot compete in the finals, he/she  MUST  withdraw (commonly called " SCRATCH ") from the finals  within 30 minutes of the announcement .  Please make sure your swimmer ALWAYS consult with their coach before deciding to scratch from the finals. If you do not scratch and your swimmer does not show up in the finals, your  swimmer will be suspended from the meet  (i.e. unable to compete for any other events in the meet) and also be fined ($50 seems to be the most common...

I have already covered some aspects of a swim meet in my earlier post  where I briefly mentioned the Prelims/Finals meet format, but I thought I would touch upon this a little bit more in detail. USA Swimming's definition of a Preliminary heat (or Preliminaries): " competition in which a number of heats are swum to qualify the fastest swimmers for the Finals ". (USA Swimming 2020 Rulebook , page 17) The most common Finals format I've seen for a  SCY meet would be the A/B Finals format, where the top 16 swimmers from the Prelims qualify (A-Final: 1st-8th,  B-Final: 9th-16th). In a LCM Prelims/Finals meet, you may also see the Top 20 qualifying for A/B Finals as some LCM pools have up to 10 lanes. Normally the B-Final (also called a Consolation Final ) is swum first, followed by the A-Final (also called a Championship Final ).  It is actually pretty cool when you first see your kid qualify for an A-Final, as the meet announcer announces each swimmers individually a...