Swim Basics
Our swim team competes in the Northwest Aquatic League, www.nwal.org. The league’s website contains rules governing meets, entries and scoring.
Swim meets are on Saturday mornings. We typically have 6 swim meets in the season. The meets begin at 8am and are usually over between 12:30-1:00 p.m. Swimmers will need to arrive earlier than 8 for warm-ups. Exact times to be at a meet will be sent in a message from the team.
- A swim meet is a competition of swimmers who swim different strokes, called events, and compete as a team against the other team. The swimmers also compete against themselves to swim faster than they swam during the last meet. You will see the swimmers ask for their times; that is important not only to the team but to the swimmers.
- Each individual event has what are known as heats, which are sections of events. Heats are seeded slowest to fastest. In each heat, the swimmers with the fastest seed times are scheduled to swim in lanes 3 and 4, which are the middle lanes.
- Relay events could have an A, B, and C relay foursome. The winning relay team earns 7 points for its team.
- Swimmers are initially placed into heat levels based on their performance at the time trial. This is why your child’s participation in the Time Trial is so important; it allows the coaches to place your child in the best position for both him and the team.
- Swimmers are divided into age categories, based on the swimmer’s age on May 31st. The categories are 6 and under; 7-8; 9-10; 11-12; 13-14; and 15-18.
- In rare cases, you will see a swimmer “swim up,” which means that the swimmer competes in an older age category. Most often you will see this occur in a relay, where the age group is missing one swimmer of that age group
Meet Events: Individual events are seeded slowest to fastest, with the last heat composed of the swimmers with the fastest submitted times. The youngest age group swims first, with girls preceding boys. Except for the 100IM, individual event distances are 25 meters (one length) for 10 and under groups and 50 meters (2 lengths) for 11-18 age groups. The order of events for all meets will be:
o 10 & Under - 50 Freestyle Events
o 11-18 - 100 Freestyle Events
o 6 and under – Freestyle Relays
o Age Group Medley Relays (four swimmers each swimming a different stroke)
o Age Group Freestyle Events
o Age Group Breaststroke Events
o 6 & Under Backstroke Event
o 100 IM – Individual Medley Events (25 meters each of butterfly, backstroke, breast stroke, freestyle)
o Age Group Backstroke Events
o Age Group Butterfly Events
o Age Group Free relay (four swimmers each swim 25 or 50 meters freestyle)
