Poolside chat: Calling all parents of competitive swimmers!

[Marypoppins19]

I thought it might be helpful to share our highs/lows/questions/thoughts in one place. Who’s joining me!?

I think slots are always an issue unless a club has its own pool. Our latest issue is one of the pools having to close temporarily as they've run out of chemicals. The timetable has been rejigged for a week with squads sharing sessions.

How would I find a coach to do some 1:1 with my son, please? I'd like him to have a bit of coaching for his diving.

helenjohanna check your club’s website and speak to your coach. Our club runs workshops in school holidays and we are able to book 1-1 with certain coaches

Oh this thread has been busy (it never shows on my activity feed for some reason). Welcome newbies.

We are still seriously struggling for pool time and have lost our long course slot.

One pool has shut, a school pool has diversified to offer gym and pool membership to the public (who want early morning swims) and another keeps breaking. As a condition of extra financial support the council demanded more public access from the main pool so that was another evening gone.

On a more positive note, I was really chuffed to get a BNWT larger size of DD's race suit on EBay (£50). There are some bargains out there.

It’s a shame you’ve lost so much pool time Madcats

This weekend should have been my younger one’s first ever open meet, and first in 18 months for my eldest, but it was cancelled at the last minute on Friday because of a Covid outbreak at another meet last weekend. It’s a real shame, they were really looking forward to it, and I think my eldest has lost motivation a bit in the last couple of months

We are back in the water for a while now, and had loads of extra time as other pool activities didn't go back initially. But we've lost the extra time now and have endless complaints about the kids splashing... we share the pool for most sessions.

I wanted to ask if anyone has any ear plug tips? DD picked up a nasty infection doing open water which keeps recurring. We have a whole array of ear plugs, but she hates them all as can't hear anything.

Turkey, I don't have any earplug recommendations, but we used to use SwimEar drops after diving in tropical climes.

Somerset has just had to postpone its Development meet (which would have been many swimmers' first opportunity to compete for nearly 2 years.

Hopefully everything will calm down after all the 12+s get a Covid jab.

Yorkshire winters have just lowered their QTs today as the entries were so low. We seem to have been lucky as we’ve had a couple of level 3 galas since our level x’s

Thanks Madcats it's worth a try, poor thing has been miserable and really missing swimming.

No sign of competition here in Ireland. Hopefully it will be allowed in the next review of restrictions. And Swim Ireland took the opportunity to fiddle with the competition pathway, so it will be a weird year.

DS (14) had his first gala in nearly 18 months this weekend and has surprised me! A lot of times are nearly 2 years old so an improvement should have been easy anyway but he smashed them. I was worried about whether he would qualify for the Counties (usually January here) but he did 4 races this weekend and has achieved well within the previously published qualifying times (I'm assuming they'll only go down if they change). DH went with him and said how well his 400m free went and that he had a strong finish, DS commented "I just did what my coach told me to do". Nice to know he's listening!

@WidowTwonky that’s interesting - wonder why the entries were so low? South West times have been set deliberately fast to keep numbers low on purpose - counts my daughter out as she’s only just turned 13 & the times aren’t far off nationals!

Sorry I should have said it was only the lower age group who have lowered the QTs.
14+ filled their initial slots.

Wow, we haven't had any sight of QTs yet here, but we're expecting a bit of a drop and a big drop in the 14+ participation numbers. High QTs will just put off the ones struggling to get back to fitness.
Have just has news of our first gala, and there are no QT at all as all the kids times are 18months old so next to useless. They plan to use them for planning for the rest of the season I understand.

I was scrolling around on Twitter this morning and spotted that Scottish Swimming are banning technical suits for 13s and under.

I imagine the poor race organisers have more than enough to worry about without policing swimwear:
www.scottishswimming.com/media/3406236/Technical-Swimwear-Policy-Jan-2022.pdf

I wonder whether it will catch on elsewhere?

We’ve had QTs announced for regionals. DD (11) qualifies for quite a few events. Fingers crossed they aren’t cancelled! Now to sort accommodation .

madcats our club doesn't recommend jammers/skins/racesuits for age group swimmers. They prefer them to wear briefs/swimming costumes. Compression is recommended for older swimmers when they have more developed muscles. You can tell which are our swimmers at a meet as they're usually the only ones in briefs/swimsuits.

Well done to your DD InspectorAlleyn

Our county QTs I think are the same as 2 years ago, I feel like they should have been eased a bit given the disruption and drop outs. And with times set except level X and the likely prospect of missing things or events getting cancelled because of Covid, it all feels hard going. I think had older DS been able to set some times a couple of months ago he probably would have done it, but he’s completely off pace at the moment in training, and the enthusiasm and motivation just isn’t there at the moment.

We have a racesuit ban for under 13s in Ireland. It was 13s and under, but our 13 yo race in mixed age group with 14yos, and it wasn't fair.
The Americans brought it in first a while ago. It does make sense, I've seen many under 13s £500 swimsuit, it's ridiculous for the vast majority.

I definitely agree it is sensible in terms of the massively expensive suits. It seems a shame that it excludes everything though, like the Speedo fastskin junior stuff which mine and a lot of others use, and isn’t really much different in price to many non fina approved stuff.

I agree that it’s potentially another hassle for officials to police, do they need to study everyone on the blocks to check for removed labels?!

Wow @InspectorAlleyn that’s fab so young! Well done to her! In the SW the times are so fast - my daughter is 13 & is pretty decent but hasn’t qualified - for example the 100 breaststroke is 1.18 so not far off national times! I think they should do it by age like the summer regionals but they aren’t round here. Don’t know why each region does it differently.

Thank you @Kevinishot and @Fourmagpies. She is very excited - mostly about the hotel! We will be going for the weekend as she’s got a few events each day. I am worried that there may not be any spectators allowed and she’s quite young to be left all day, although I know the coaches will be great with her.

Well done inspectoralleyn. Regional QT is excellent!
The difference between winter counties and regional QT is huge for us as DS has a Dec birthday so qualifies for some events easy as a 12 yr old but then has 20+ secs knocked off for regional QTs as a 13 yr old. So tough

DD's first swim competition since Feb 2020 is too late to qualify our Regionals (assuming that either go ahead).

Well done to mini inspectoralleyn.

DD is going to miss our first competitions back as she broke a finger. No idea when she'll get back in the pool, anyone have any experience? Poor girl has been out a month now due to illness and injury.

Has anyone got any advice for a 13 year old who has completely lost motivation in training please? I’ve got his coach moaning at me all the time about him, and he apparently lost his temper with DS earlier in the week.
I’ve spoken to DS a few times, he says he doesn’t want to give up, but he’s bored of training being lots of free and wants to do more breast and fly. I think lack of competing hasn’t helped either, as that is what he really loves, and there has only been one open meet and no leagues since pre Covid.

I’m at a loss as to what to do, I don’t think we could make another club work logistically, plus he has some lovely friends there. He worked so hard for months when they went back after all of the lockdowns and it’s just all fallen in the last 3 months or so.