Lake Ridge Lancers: Guide to Swim Meets
Thursday, April 20First Year Swimmers
The first year of any new activity can be both scary and confusing for children and their parents. The following pages were designed to help beginning swimmers and their parents become comfortable with the sport of swimming and ease into the swim team experience.
Thursday, April 20
Swimming Terms
Swimming can be confusing to a first year athlete. Several different terms are used to describe not only the sport, but the pool, and various events at a swim meet. The following is a list of definitions to help you out.
Anchor: The last swimmer in a relay.
Course: The designated distance over which the competition is conducted. The standard is 25 Meters for Summer league meets, 50 Meters for Olympic competition, and 25 Yards for regular year-round and college competition.
Coping: The deck tile, usually about one foot wide, at the edge of the pool. Watch out! It can usually be very slippery.
Divisionals: The championship meet of the summer league season.
DQ: Disqualification from the event. A swimmer can be disqualified for various reasons.
Dual Meet: Any competition between two clubs.
Event: Any race or series of races in a given stroke and distance for a specific age group and sex. Example: Girls 8 & Under 25 meter breaststroke.
Lane: The specific area in which the swimmer is assigned to swim.
Lane Rope: The easily breakable, floating markers attached to a line that stretch from the starting end to the turning end to separate each lane.
Leg: The part of a relay event swum by one individual swimmer.
Meet: The swimming equivalent to a "game." Summer league meets are usually held on Saturday mornings.
Scratch: To withdraw from an event.
Seed: To distribute the swimmers among the heats & lanes according to their times. In most cases, the fastest swimmers are in the final heat of an event.
Stroke & Turn Judge: A trained swim official that judges the swimmers’ legality for the event being swum. If a stroke & turn judge finds that the swimmer's stroke is not legal, he/she disqualifies the swimmer.
Tri-Meet: Any competition between three clubs.
Thursday, April 20
What to Bring to a Swim Meet
Many parents are just beginning their swim team experience this year, so we have developed a brief guide to help get them through a regular swim meet.
What to pack?
Many parents and swimmers never seem to know what to pack for competition day, and if they do, they often forget. Here is a list of important things to remember.
- A bathing suit. This is vital if you want to compete.
- Towels. (I recommend two!)
- Swim cap and goggles, if your swimmer uses them. I recommend both; Goggles protect your swimmer's eyes from chlorine while caps keep long hair out of the way during a race.
- Sweats. It is summertime, but there is an unspoken rule that it MUST be rainy and cold on scheduled swim meet days.
- Extra change for the bake table. Chances are high that your swimmer will be hungry during the swim meet.
- A deck of cards or travel game. Your child could be waiting an hour or two between events and may get restless.
- Sunblock. We don't want our kids to get fried!
- A tent or sleeping bag, if you have one. Kids may want to rest between events.
Thursday, April 20
Order of Events for a Summer Swim Meet
Order of Events
Each meet is run in the same order every week. There are some basic things to remember: in each event, the boys swim before the girls. The meet begins with the 15-18 freestyle relays, then the medley relays for each age group. The age groups swim in order from youngest (8 & Unders) to oldest (15-18) in each event. After the medley relays are the freestyle events, I.M. (Individual Medley), Backstroke, Breastroke and Butterfly events, and finally the freestyle relays.
Thursday, April 20
When Does My Child Know When to Swim?
The announcer will announce each event when the clerk of course is ready for it. It is very important to listen to the announcer, because no one wants to miss their event. The clerk of course will be pointed out to the swimmers prior to the start of the swim meet. At the clerk of course, the volunteers will place the swimmer in the heat and lane that they will be swimming in for that particular event.
Thursday, April 20
Who Chooses My Child's Event?
Each week, the coaches enter your child in the events they will swim at the meet on Saturday. To place your child in events, the coaches look at the child's strengths and weaknesses, overall athletic ability, and the number of times the child has swum the event. They also try to enter each event evenly. For example, we would not want 20 kids doing freestyle and 2 doing I.M. Relays are determined by the top times from as of the previous week. The A relay is the top 4 swimmers, B is the next 4, and the C relay is the next 4. If your child is not on a relay, it simply means that they did not qualify for one of the relay positions that week. Just because the child is not on a relay one week does not mean the child will never be on a relay.