Swim and/or Dive team questions

[TravelingChris]

WE are brand new to the swim and dive team arena. My youngest is on seim and dive team and the middle is in dive team only. Neither dh nor I have any idea of what happens at the meets except what we have seen in movies, tv shows, or Olympics. Tomorrow, for example, my club is having team trials. WHat does this mean? DOes each child swim to see how fast they go in each stroke? DO they chose strokes? My youngest wants to do backstroke but has been practicing everything with all the rest of the team. Any helpful ideas?

[EarleneW]

They will do all the stroke, at least our team does at the time trials . It is to see how fast they are at each stroke so the coaches know where to place them in the lineup at the meets.

[lgm]

It probably depends on the club; we had team trials last week. Yes, they see how fast each stroke is after they do warmups. Swimmers are given a piece of paper to fill out with their name and age; paper goes to timer to fill out. Swimmers were grouped by age and gender. Depending on their level, they swam one of either two or three strokes, one length or one lap as their turn came up. It was very easy for the new swimmers..coaches would tell them which stroke and distance before they came up to the block so they were ready. Don't know what happens with diving as no one was diving.

[Lolly]

I am just guessing because our team doesn't do this.

 

Most likely, they are running a team members only meet to get times for the swimmers and to allow the parents/kids to experience a meet in a very controlled/familiar venue. It also can allow the parents to learn to work the jobs they will be working at meets in the future.

 

What your child will swim> This will vary by team, but most teams seem to have the coaches choose the swimmers' events. Some allow the swimmers or parents to have a say. Your child will probably be swimming a little bit of everything they can swim legally, and possibly a little of what they can't swim legally. Most coaches try to throw in one swim a meet that is not in the swimmers best events. This is especially true of younger or newer swimmers. They tend to be entered in a little bit of everything.

[mcconnellboys]

Well, all this can vary by teams.

 

Of the teams my older son has been on, the events for official meets were chosen for him on the first; he was allowed to choose his events (although coaches could modify) on the second; his coach chooses now, on the third. And perhaps to confuse you more, even if they are very good at a particular stroke, and decide to swim in college, that may not be the stroke the college coach chooses for them to specialize in....

 

Kids generally learn to do all strokes and swim all strokes in their meets up through high school. There's no reason to limit them and very good reasons to give them as much experience as possible over as broad a range of swimming as possible. Now, they may begin to swim more of particular strokes, or they may specialize in sprinting, or in the longer events as time goes by. Some kids are better at the median events of around 200 yds/mtrs.

 

My son started out swimming mostly longer events. Now he rarely swims those but has gotten much faster at the shorter events and has broadened the types of events he swims for various strokes. So they may develop and change over time. Another boy I know who is a nationally ranked sprinter only began to swim some longer events (100's) about a year ago. So every child is going to be different. And they may change as they grow and develop over their high school years.

 

Generally, team trials are going to be opportunities for the coaches to get times for the various events all their kids swim so that they can begin to gauge, even before they have meet times, what events they're better in, where they need more work, etc. Coaches might do trials only in various lengths of freestyle one time, then do trials for fly or breast another time. They might set these up like inter-team swim meets and do some of everything. They can do virtually anything, so I can't tell you what it will be like, sorry.

 

I would not expect the kids to be able to select what they will swim for timed trials. These are generally done because the coaches are trying to get an idea of how to enter kids in meets, what areas need work, etc., so I think they will have certain specifics in mind when conducting the trials and will tell the kids what they'll be swimming.