Bensmom Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 We have never been to Age Groups/State Championships. We have a very tiny team and my son is probably the only one going this year. We will probably not have a coach on deck. (Our coach is a student at junior college and is generally not at our meets.) I have looked over the meet info. online but have a few questions about how the meet functions and we do not have the luxury of having a knowedgeable coach or teammates to ask. We have never participated in a meet with preliminary events and final events later in the day. Are the finals for just the fastest heat in prelims (8 swimmers)? Are preliminaries just to make sure every swimmer meets the minimum qualifying time and multiple heats will progress to finals? My son makes the minimum time on several events, but barely. He only has two events in which he truly excels. Do you recommend only entering him in those two events, or do swimmers usually swim every event for which they qualify? If you know that your swimmer will be among the slowest at State, do you personally recommend still going? What else should I know/consider? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaKinVA Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Hopefully someone else will reply, too. I'm in a different league now, so this is based upon my understanding. Everyone swims prelims. The top X number, based upon times, swim in finals. As far as how many events to swim, I know our league allows and plans that everyone will be able to swim every event that they have qualified for...but we have fewer events. If I recall correctly, I do think that there was some picking and choosing...it had to do with the schedule of events. The kids i know did swim some of their weaker events, mainly to help keep them in the meet mentally, and to prevent them from getting too cold. But, I really think it mostly had to do with how and when events were scheduled more than anything else. Congrats! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 There should be a PDF with meet information on your state's website. It will have all the answers hopefully. For our state, a swimmer can enter up to seven events over the course of the meet, with no more than 3 per day. Everyone swims in the morning prelim session. Top eight come back as the championship final and the next eight as the consolation final. If he made the qualifying time (just barely still counts!), he should swim the event. Obviously, a just barely qualified swimmer will probably not make finals, but he can still get a best time and have a blast. Congrats to him, buy a t-shirt and have fun! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Is this a USA swimming sanctioned event/league? If so, every swimmer on deck must have a coach supervising them on deck (even Michael Phelps). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Your coach should make arrangements for him to warm up with another team. It should be pretty simple. Even a email or call to the meet organizer should solve the problem of not being with a coach. You will be assigned to a team for warm up and that coach will also get any info on scratches, dq slips, finals info, etc. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Let's talk about how the seeding works in a prelim/finals format. In non-prelim/finals format, heats are seeded consecutively, usually slowest to fastest, so you're swimming next to people with similar seed times; this is probably what you're used to. With prelim/finals meets, the swimmers are circle-seeded. This means that the fastest 10 (or 8, depending on how many lanes you have) swimmers are not all in the final heat. Otherwise, finals would just be a repeat of the last heat of prelims. Instead, the fastest 20 or 30 (or 16 or 24) are spread among the last two or three prelim heats. The fastest times from prelims, from all heats, go to finals. You can go to finals from any prelim heat. There are usually at least two final heats, but sometimes there is a championship heat and several consolation heats. The winners come from the championship heat even if someone in a consolation heat swims faster in finals than someone in the championship heat. In other words, if you make then championship heat, you're guaranteed at least a tenth-place finish unless you DQ. Some events even in a prelim/finals meet are not actually swum twice. These are usually described in the meet information as "timed finals." It would just be mean to make 12 year olds swim the 1000 free twice, for instance, but depending on age, this could apply to anything from 400 on up. Instead, these events are seeded consecutively (not circle-seeded), and the fastest heat is swum in finals as if it were a final. For placement purposes, winners are judged against all heats, so someone in an early heat could place ahead of someone in the final heat. And my experience, as others have noted, is that swimmers swim as many events as they can. Your coach definitely needs to make sure your swimmer has a coach on deck. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bensmom Posted July 5, 2015 Author Share Posted July 5, 2015 Thank you for all the responses. There is a lot for us the learn about the sport, but ds loves it so I guess we will be doing this for a long while. Yes, our coach always contacts another coach for our swimmers to join with at meets. It is not ideal, but it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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