Poolside Chat: parents of competitive swimmers

[2ducksandI]

Seems I managed to fill the other thread with talk of taking fridges to away galas! And I didnt even mean a fridge I meant an electric cool box So I've started another thread. Hope you all find it.

Good luck miniiwan

DD qualified for British champs and winter nationals and although has the times on rankings to qualify for British, she just totally bottles it during the window period. This has been the case for the past 5 years. She won’t qualify for English as she is in the 17 and over age group with swimmers up to 9 years older than her. There are no 17 years old that have qualified in that group for the swims she does as qualification times are actually faster than British. Oh well. What normally happens is she will do a meet the week after the window closes and go back to swimming her times on the rankings.

Have the ladies not got separate age groups this year for 17 and 18? I know the males have after consultation over the last year or so.

I'll be honest I don't really know as para swimming is all multi class and all open age group at counties, regionals and summer British and home nations. Ds is same age group (18 end of this year) so a junior for para swimming in comps where they do junior and open.

Until next year!!! Then he's going to be in the same boat and racing swimmers who compete on the international scene.

But 🤞 she manages to hold it together and surprise herself in this window

British is 17, English is 17 plus. The boys are 17 for both British and english

There are separate 17 & 18 year age groups for British this year. Not sure about English

@turkeyboots

We have a number of "ringers" in our club. They live abroad but are registered here at Granny's address so can swim at our nationals. Club is small and coaches grew up with their parents, so agreed to have them on the books. There's always a way round!

This happens in England too. They're usually swimmers whose parents are based abroad or they have at least one parent who is English / Irish so entitles them to choose that country of representation to swim for and swim in the national meets.

Good luck to all those at regional competitions this weekend.

Thank you everyone who gave me tips on Leeds, they have all been very useful. My DH wondered how I was so knowledgeable about where to eat and where to park so obviously I just told him it was because I know everything, I'm not giving away my secrets lol. DS had 1 race today and PB'd so that was good, 2 races tomorrow which might make the morning go a bit faster. Its the next weekend where the most of his races are and we will be complete experts on Leeds by then 😀

Well done to minihello best of luck for tomorrow too!!!

Ds is T racing until next weekend. His is all 3 days over the BH but I'm grateful it isn't over 2 weekends 🤣

I'm still out out they haven't publish the para times for the summer champs yet. It closes in 2 weeks and because it's not done on rankings and accepted numbers the para swimmers have no chance of even guessing what and if they'll qualify!

Well done for the swims and to you for expert parking!

did you enjoy the queue for hoodies Hellocatshome 😂

just one event today for us and didn’t make finals but enjoyed sharing the live streaming with family

@WidowTwonky I was literally the first person in the queue. We have a system DH finds seats I stand in the hoodie queue. I dont expect DS to make any finals I keep telling him just qualifying was an achievement and to just have fun.

Ah, how I've missed the hoodie queue!! Will be dispatching DH next week for this but he's swimming on day 3 so fingers crossed they replenish sizing, colours and transfers.

We're not doing hoody for regionals.

I've promised him one from summer champs though.

Purely because he just cannot wear them all between swimming ones and ones from leaving school etc!

DD has now managed to qualify here for Div 2 nationals but we are away. However she is desperate for the hoodie and merch, so her coach is going to enter her, scratch her on the day and pick up a hoodie!! The things we do for our swimmers!

Well done for her qualifying turkey. Where abouts are you? We don't do divisions here in England and I find it interesting just how each region does things differently here at regional level let alone how different countries differ!

He's missed out on 2 previous years of regionals so we'll get him one. He lives in hoodies so it's not like it will never be worn and he's grown quite a bit so the 2019 counties one will possibly now be too small

It wasn't a dig - I hope it didn't come across that way

But my ds is older now and so has had many years collecting hoody's for various things - he now has 10 🤣

I have however promised him if he makes summer champs I'll buy him one there

@itsgettingweird we are in Ireland so have a different structure as its a much smaller country. We don't have counties (there are only 2 clubs in my county!), our regionals are slightly under most English county qualifying times, and nationals are spilt into two levels. Division 2 is slightly tougher than GB county levels generally and our Div 1 are slightly under GB regional times. There is a big leap then to national open level competition.

@itsgettingweird, I didn't take it as a dig at all. I'll probably be thinking the same by the time my DS reaches your DS' age too!!

Thanks for explaining turkey

I think Scotland have a slightly different structure to England as well but I'm not entirely sure how it works.

Also because of the huge difference in areas within England our county and regional times can vary quite a lot from one to another.

I really like our structure of level4, 3 and 2 meets to allow all swimmers of all levels to compete.

We have level 1, 2 etc too, but only for Club galas. And there aren't many of them compared to the UK (I was in SW region before and went to loads of club galas). We go to 2 or 3 level 3 club galas a year as a club, and there are a few level 1s. Mostly competition is at regional level and there are 2 development and 2 qualifying galas for each season with either cut off or consideration times. We also follow the American model and have short course season Sept to Dec and Long course Jan to Jul. So we're in peak LC qualifying time right now. All very different!

Oh and our numbers are the other way round I think, level 1 being for beginners and usually for under 12 or 14s.

We're upgrading from a 2019 Regional hoody. DD has grown quite a bit in 3 years, so it is looking a tad small and a bit tired! It's done remarkably well (or maybe I just have a gentle washing machine).

With Regionals not happening in 2020, with so little notice, I can't help thinking that the hoody firms would have been "all stocked up and nowhere to sell".

This thread actually inspired me to check the hoody situation here!

He has a counties one from 2019 which still fits - and is bright orange!

His school leavers one and his club kit one.

He has some zip up jackets (winter and summer) but for some reason I thought he had more than he does!

Actually another 2 wouldn't be a bad idea and it's his first regionals this year so I may treat him after all (especially as we don't have hotel costs for this one either!) as well as one from summer champs.

And I blame you ALL for making me give in 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣