SWIM MEETS FOR DUMMIES
When Planning For a Swim Meet
1. Bring some cash. Some meets charge for programs or “heat sheets”. These are useful for you
personally in order to follow the meet and find where and when your child will be swimming.
There are also snack bars available that your swimmer may want to take advantage of!
2. Bring a Sharpie marker, pen, or pencil to write times on your heat sheet. A highlighter is also
useful to mark where and when your child is swimming.
3. Spectator seating at swim meets are mostly in bleachers. If you want some cushion or back
support, bring a stadium seat.
4. Do not plan for your child to sit with you and your family. Swimmers belong with their team
during the meet.
5. Do not plan on going over to the team area too often. Only coaches, timers, officials and
swimmers are allowed “on deck” (the area around the pool and behind the blocks where
swimmers prepare to swim) during meets.
6. If you want to take pictures, keep in mind that the flash from cameras interferes with timing and
starting equipment so they are prohibited during starts. (It is a good idea to figure out how to
avoid using a flash during the whole meet, to keep things simple.)
7. Swimmers need to stay hydrated and eat during meets. Pack protein and high-quality carbs, not
junk. Water bottles are necessary. If your child absolutely insists on Gatorade or juice, water it
down.
8. You may be walking on tile floors, wear shoes that will help keep you sure-footed. Your
swimmers will need appropriate shoes as well.
9. It can get very warm and humid at indoor swim meets. Wearing layers is a good idea for you and
your swimmers. Your swimmer should have warm up clothes to wear in between their events,
too. Swimmers will also require at least more than one towel to get them through a swim meet.
10. Be prepared for some down time between events. If you have children and other people that
need to be entertained consider brining blankets for them to sit on outside the pool area. Here
you can give them activities to occupy them. Plan on needing more entertainment than you
think.
11. If you are going to be late or can’t make it to the meet for any reason, call the coach! You
should keep the coach’s cell phone number handy.
Once You Are At the Meet
1. Punctuality is a virtue. Warm ups for the majority of our swim meets begin a half hour before
the meet is set to begin (i.e. a 1:00PM meet has a warm up at 12:30PM). Please arrive 15
minutes before the start of warm ups so everyone can get settled.
2. At this point you may take your swimmer to their team area and check in with the coach. It is
useful to bring fold out chairs/ blankets/sleeping bags/ extra towels for your swimmer to sit on
during the meet.
3. Referring back to the heat sheet and highlighter; heat sheets list the individual swim events, the
participants in each event, what heat they are in, what lane each swimmer will occupy, and if
the swimmer has a history of swimming that event, what his/her previous best time swimming
in that event was. To keep track of when your child is swimming, going through the heat sheet
and highlighting each of your swimmers events can be useful.
4. Now, for the Sharpie marker. Swimmers do not always have access to heat sheets. The best way
for your younger swimmers to keep track of their events is to write on themselves. Most
swimmers write on their hands or their arm. Below is a grid example of what your child can have
on their arm. It should include their event, the heat, the lane and the stroke/distance that they
are swimming.
E
22
35
H
3
1
L
4
2
S
50Fr
200IM
During the Meet
1. Use your pen or pencil to record the time your swimmer achieves in each event they swim
on the heat sheet. Your swimmer can use this information to assess their performance in
the meet. If there is a scoreboard it will show the lane number and time. If not, your
swimmer has been told to ask for their time upon completion of their event. Swimmers may
visit with you after their event has been swum in order to tell you their time.
2. During the meet your child will be “staged” before their events. This means parent
volunteers will give them a card with their event, heat and lane information and they will be
seated to be taken out to the blocks. It is your child’s responsibility to make it to the blocks.
They will have plenty of guidance as far as getting to where they need to be.
3. Be prepared for hearing that your swimmer has “DQ’ed”: disqualified. The people you see
walking around the pool with clipboards wearing white shirts are swim meet officials. One
of their jobs is to make sure the swimmers follow the rules, such as swimmers only are to
use dolphin kicks during butterfly events. When a swimmer is disqualified, this means the
swimmer is not eligible to place for the event and their time is not recorded. Hearing that
they have DQ’ed can be really tough news, especially for a new swimmer. Most officials will
talk to younger children after they have been disqualified to explain what happened.
Coaches will also address the problem as well and begin taking steps to fix it during practice.
4. Cheer for the Riptides! Keeping the teams energy up is important and it helps everyone be
involved with the swim meet. Don’t just cheer for your child, cheer for your child’s
teammates. Just remember that swimmers need to be able to hear the start so be sure to
be quiet at this point. Once they have entered the water, go ahead and show them your
support!
5. You can check what place your child achieved in an event by checking the event results
which are often posted in the hallway on the wall after events. Ribbons are distributed after
the meets either at practice or in your team mailboxes.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. Why is my child only swimming in two events/one relay?
A. A swimmer may only participate in four events total (i.e. 2 individuals and 2 relays). Most
pools have 6 lanes but some have 4 meaning there can only be 2 or 3 individuals in each event.
If your child is a 9-10 girl and the team has twelve 9-10 girls, only 3 will get to swim the 50
Freestyle in any given meet. Coaches decide who will swim what event mainly based on times
but occasionally, a coach will place your child in an event they do not normally swim in order to
get a time or challenge your swimmer. Coaches do the best they can to make sure every
swimmer gets as many chances as possible to swim in a meet.
Q. Why isn’t my child swimming in a relay?
A. This is probably best explained by an example. Take the freestyle relay, for instance, in which
four swimmers participate. If there are only three swimmers in your child’s age/gender group,
then there are not enough to make a relay team. If there are more than four swimmers, but less
than eight, then there are only enough swimmers to make one relay team. In the latter case, the
swimmers with the top four individual freestyle times are chosen for the relay team.
Q. How can we tell who wins the meet?
A. In each event, coaches pick two swimmers (determined by past times) who are competing for
points. They swim in the first race of an event (called a heat), which is the “live” heat. All other
swimmers in the event are swimming “exhibition.” A finish judge for each team sits at the finish
line and decides which swimmer was first, second and so on. Points are assigned based on place
and tallied up by the scorekeepers as the meet progresses. At the end of the meet, the team
with the most points wins.
Q. How can I tell what event we are on?
A. Each pool should have a sign or scoreboard with the event number on it somewhere in plain
sight. Also, the official (usually the person with a bullhorn that starts each race) will announce
the event and heat before each race.
Q. Why do we have exhibition swimmers?
A. The kids can usually only compete for points in 2-3 individual events. Over the swim season
they improve a lot, so the exhibition times are important in that they help the coaches track
their progress. Please help your child understand that they should watch for and celebrate “best
times”, which are their personal records in the each stroke. Their times will be on the ribbons
that are given out a few days after each meet.
Q. If I notice that my child is in the wrong lane, what do I do?
A. Often there are changes at the last minute that may affect heat and lane for a child’s race.
We like to combine heats whenever possible to make the meets run faster, and there may be
substitutions because of absent swimmers. If you think your child is in the wrong heat or lane
for his/her race, ask the head coach or clerk. Please remember that what we write on their
hand in the morning is not the final word on a child’s heat/lane. The official has the most
current list of where the swimmer should be.
Q. My child has missed practice all week. Doesn’t the coach know that we won’t be at the
meet?
A. No. The coach only knows what you wrote on your Meet Availability Form. Often swimmers
are involved in outside activities that make them miss practices off and on, but they still make it
back to the meets. If you signed up for the meet, please let the coach know as soon as possible,
in writing, in the case that your child cannot swim (use the coach’s cell phone number on the
day of the meet: email may be too slow.) Even if your child is not feeling well, they may be on a
relay that might not swim if they are not at the meet. This is particularly disappointing to the
other relay swimmers if they are planning to swim and are told at the last minute that they do
not have enough swimmers to make a relay team. Also, if you have signed up for a volunteer
position, try to find a substitute or at the very least, contact the volunteer coordinators as soon
as possible to let them know that the position needs to be filled.
Q. What does it mean when my child is "swimming up"?
The coach may determine that the team (and perhaps the swimmer) can best be served by
having your child swim in an older age bracket. This is a compliment to the swimmer because it
shows the coach feels that the he or she can swim effectively and will make a significant
contribution to the team.