Poolside chat - new year, new racing!

It was rather a shock!!!

Ds is happy he's got his freestyles. It's going to be interesting this year with all para swimmers taking part and the new changes to finals etc. 😄

It's fascinating how much the men develop. Ds is 19 and still looks like a baby compared to the 21 and over men 😂

Yes the 14 and understand that re swim can be entered onto the SE nationals list but it won't remove anyone who is currently on it. I guess they have to go faster than the slowest place?

@Teateaandmoretea is absolutely right that setting unrealistic goals can make them miserable and that is why it's worthwhile spending time with the coach and setting personal goals each season. If their focus is on enjoying the swimming for fitness and friendship then set the goal accordingly. If they have ambitions to win a medal - great goal. If they have ambition to qualify for a L1/2 - great goal. Not one size fits all but when you are spending so much time on an activity you have to be happy else what is the point

@elevens24 in terms of qualification for stuff tbh I take the view that it’s just a swimming gala really with faster swimmers. I don’t think it’s healthy to stake everything on qualification for things - it makes them miserable. If they are going to qualify then they will and great but if they don’t then they need to concentrate on why they swim (ie that fundamentally they enjoy it). Neither of mine have ever qualified for anything higher than counties, dd2 probably won’t qualify for that this year.

@Hairyfairy01 I don’t know how old your dd is - you may find as she gets older (13+) competition in local galas reduces as the top squads at big clubs often don’t do them. That said most county level dd1’s age group is hotter than the one above so it also is a thing here.

There are some amazing swimmers on here so it's easy to read this thread and be disillusioned I think. My dd is an 'average' swimmer but despite having an April birthday never gets medals simply because other swimmers of the same age are much faster. However her friend is 6 months older and often competes in a higher age category where despite getting slower times than my dd comes normally gets lots of medals simply because there's not as much competition for her. This has obviously been quite disheartening for her. However my dd learnt pretty early on that medals aren't likely to be coming her way so she concentrates on PB's and percentage of time knocked off (as well as all the friendships she has made).

We do similar @WidowTwonky. I don't think it helps having big goals set as something can easily go wrong (like illness or injury) and then the swimmer is disappointed and frustrated. As well as looking at PBs, I help DS gauge his progress by looking at what rank he entered on and which rank he was once he's swum. (So if he gets into Regionals as 35th in a particular race and then finishes at 12th, that's brilliant. In fact, 34th would be a win...) That way, even though he hasn't made finals, he can see he's getting better.

@elevens24 my swimmer has a Dec birthday too. Has never won a medal at anything above a L3, never been invited to any dev camps etc but has made nationals the past 2 years. We tackled it by setting incremental goals - make counties, make finals at counties, make regionals, make finals at regionals etc. and slowly but surely it is coming together.

Us too. An inspiration to skinny athletes everywhere. DS was well pleased to meet him. He seems like such a nice guy.

We have a few swimmers like your DD @elevens24 and it is difficult, but it does even out. Some of the end of December kids are just beginning to get medals now they're in open mens/womens categories. DS is currently swimming in open mens (17 and over) even though he's 16 for a while yet and still doing GCSEs - he's tall and skinny and looks half the width of most of the people he's up against. He's definitely been inspired by Popovici . I think it has made him faster as he's had to work harder to compete.

Our para swimmers train with our AB swimmers. Sometimes they get a lane to themselves if having to work on something specific.

The whole process seems designed to be as confusing as possible!

That seems to be what people on Facebook have taken from the message on the swimming results page. I have no skin in the game at all so haven't looked into it too far.

Is that the bit on the front page about not removing existing data? It doesn’t seem very clear. And I’m confused how they can be certain everywhere except England is final - surely one of the swimmers in the SE could make British? And have they checked none entered have Welsh or Scottish nationality?

The message seems to be the reswims from South East will only add people not remove others from the list. Which seems to suggest there could be more than the original number of swimmers invited in some events for the under 14s.

@itsgettingweird that’s awful that they weren’t treated the same way with medals, I know you have said before about sometimes not being able to have the medal on the day too. They should either all be engraved or none. None of the medals at our regionals were engraved (I imagine it could cause some complications - there was a tie for a medal in one event), but thinking about it I don’t remember hearing them read out the para results whereas they did read out the age category results.

@elevens24 it is definitely tough when they have a late birthday, especially with a similar friend in the next age category to compare to. I think all you can do is encourage her to see the long term picture, and that as she gets older the age differences will level out (and for girls that will be sooner too). I’ve seen lots of swimmers who have come through later once they are into their teens. I also assume it was one of the level 1 meets as they had a combined 13-14 age group that was age on 31 December, so likely to have been a very competitive meet. I’ve tried to encourage mine not to focus too much on whether they get medals or not at open meets, because that’s a function of what kind of meet it is, and who the other swimmers are on the day, not necessarily how well they swam, but instead to try and look at what they have done well in their swimming.

@itsgettingweird Thats so rubbish about the medals.do you have to put stickers on to remind you what they were for.

I dont know much about paraswimming. Our tiny club has just opened a para lane for competitive swimming with a specialist coach. Apparently, it was very hard to get the company that owns the pool to approve it. None of the big clubs round here have a lane but i assume the para swimmers swim with the AB swimmers at those club, which i guess for most paraswimmers is right for them? The people that joined us said that they had been turned away from a lot of clubs though and needed more support due to learning difficulties.

I will be making sure our club gala medals are the exact same as the AB swimmers though now (if they aren't already)

I’m not saying it’s fair or equal, just that most swimmers are concentrating on their own improvement not medals. Most also don’t get to regionals anyway and about 30% make counties. It’s easy to forget that on this thread which has a very large number of incredibly fast successful swimmers.

Nothing can possibly be fair when you’ve been dealt hands like para swimmers have - and of course they should be treated equally.

Yeah but AB swimmers swim in age groups. At 12 all swimmers are 11/12 yo.

11/12 yo para swimmers are racing 18+ yos. Then add the multi class.

They aren't comparing their times at 12 against other 12yos (there's very rarely 2 paras of same age and class racing - unless S14) I think for them that's a pro because you aren't going in expecting to win at 12 (or looking at what others your age are swimming!) and so you can only focus on you and time. It's probably the one advantage they have and makes it easier to just focus on their development.

This years regionals all medals for ABs were engraved with event. All para medals weren't. They also don't count them in medal table.

They feel unnoticed and not really equal

Dd1 does have one engraved one. Bizarrely enough it was for 100 breaststroke and BS is her worst stroke.