Poolside-Chat-parents-of-competitive-swimmers

[Glittertwins]

Hopefully this will work as we’re at 999 on the other!

The Speedo Junior LZR X is the one my 13 year old has, I paid 90 for it reduced. The issue is that it’s hard to find the bigger sizes, she has a 15-16 and is 5’6. The arena ones baffled me, we went to Allen’s and they didn’t seem to be designed for skinny girls with wide shoulders (swimmers 😂🤷🏻‍♀️). She was kind of popping out the side of them in the wrong places ifykwim 🤦🏻‍♀️. The 11-12 biggest child one was tiny, no chance of getting in that. But she is reasonably tall.

Sizing also varies by brand. I can't fathom Speedo or Arena sizing!
But either way, they need to be tried on to make sure they are tight fitting whatever your budget. I know a PP said closed back was more for backstroker swimmers but if your swimmer is quite angular, then an open back is going to gape at the sides and there will be a drag effect which is the complete opposite of the point of them.

Generally racewear should be tight so ignore ages on the junior ranges as depending on their build they may need a much smaller size than the age suggests!

This applies to boys. With girls if they are skinny and try to wear a smaller size ouch 😳. I am very well acquainted with the term ‘wedgie’

It's definitely harder for girls. I've seen bleeding knuckles from getting those suits on. There are so many different places it has to fit on unlike the boys too.
I daren't even risk a race suit these days. If they can rip on the block to someone like Federica Pelegrini then I do not feel safe!

I’ve seen race jammers split on the blocks, fortunately the officials had a towel ready at the end of the race and the swimmer was giggly rather than mortified.

I think for girls / women, some manufacturers have specific dimensions that suit particular body shapes. We had a muscular backstroker that found the Mosconi racesuits fitted well, a tall willowy fly / breast swimmer went for Diana suits.

Yes Allen's and arena are good.

I use proswimwear sale section as it can have good deals but agree some is expensive.

This year I got a pair of jammers for da for British champs from arena. £197 retail. In sale and then discounted again for signing up.

Paid £120 ish.

Not cheap!!! But at that level we moved from ones that we got for £60 (again arena) to a much more technical pair!

Same here @itsgettingweird. I promised DS some new ones if he got regional times. He got 3 and then covid hit. Took him to try various pairs on last autumn when it became clear that racing was starting and continuing and fortunately I have a 10% discount for that retailer otherwise not much change from £200 either.

I've seen jammers split (through the front) as swimmer was getting ready to go on block and thank god he had good reaction time 😂

I'm making ds wear his cheaper ones for meets and counties level and saving the nicer pair for regional, national and British comps - to try and make them last longer

During the heatwave I bought some cooling neck towels. Maybe I should shove one round my neck next time I'm marshalling in case of a jammer mishap.

It's the stuff of nightmares!

Sod that, keep them round your own neck, it's always hot on the poolside!

Racesuits are banned under 13 in Ireland too. Seeing 10 year olds in €500 techsuits and the related peer pressure was part of the reasons.
I miss Allen's of Kingsbury, their post brexit shipping to Ireland is too expensive these day and I'll stuck with pro swimwear. But occasionally Amazon or Sports Direct have great discounts if you are after a particular style.

Have a little search on Vinted every once in a while. I got some Speedo LZR Elite jammers on there for £1.50. Too big for DS but for £1.50 they will sit in the cupboard until he grows.

I’ve honestly never seen 10 year olds in £500 race suits. Most of them wear the speedo endurance, which are indestructible, go through families and are brilliant when they first start periods. I must admit I don’t agree with policing what girls (and it is girls, jammers are far less controversial) wear because of a tiny minority of idiot parents.

I've seen it sadly, both here and the UK. But legsuits aren't always techsuits, and there is no issue with girls in legsuits at all.

The Irish techsuit policy applies to all swimmers under13 (I think it's 13) - not just girls.

It's similar to the US policy to help make competitive swimming more affordable for parents.

Young children don't need techsuits and certainly not ones with FINA labels on.

The fina labels are completely stupid on speedo endurance anyway. So the suggestion is people should chuck away perfectly good swimwear? Or they just peel off anyway so would that be okay? Maybe it would be better to put pressure on manufacturers to not put daft labels on kids swimsuits - dd2 has one that cost 25 quid. Cheap but I wouldn’t be happy at replacing it for no reason.

I realise this applies to boys also but it’s the full race suits this is really about is the point I’m making.

The FINA labels just means the suits have been made to a set of specifications required by FINA.

At national and international meets, you'll find officials checking swimmers have FINA labels on their suits.

I'm assuming this is to ensure someone doesn't wear an off label super suit with extra compression or water repellency properties.

This is why I don't think it's appropriate for young swimmers.

Parents are just paying for an expense that doesn't do anything for young swimmers.

Entry fees are our biggest expense at competitions. £7.50 per entry seems to be the norm +/- 50p these days compared to £5/6 pre lockdown (though that might be my bad memory).

Add in petrol and a weekend competition is definitely not cheap.

I think my biggest expense is travel and hotel at meets.

Each national meet with hotel stay is between £700 - £900 (because we go for the full whatever number of nights)

It's eye watering when you add the costs up - training fees, gala entries, travel, hotels / accommodation, techsuits etc 🤯

Travel to nationals twice was our biggest expense. Only one of us will go next year providing he makes it - we all went this year as it was the first time.

But re the race suits, there will always be people with more money than sense in life full stop. If they want to waste their money on something that is not going to make a lick of difference at that stage of development so what? It's the same in track and field with spikes and trainers for example.

I tend to agree glitter. I didn't buy ds any racing jammers for meets when he was 12/13.

He asked me when he could get racing jammers like the other swimmers and I said when you start winning medals.

It was a flippant comment with a laugh.

He went to a league gala with the team that weekend and they won 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

He got a £50 pair of arena ones and they lasted until we went back after lockdown because he outgrew them over that time.

Replaced like for like and then got him the tech ones for british but they were also his 18th birthday present which was a few weeks later as that's what he wanted 🤷‍♀️

My biggest swimming-related expense is petrol for sure 😂😂

Completely agree the fina labelling for kids is pointless. But if we banned everything pointless it would be a strange world. I deffo don’t feel the need to buy dd2 (or dd1 for that matter) a 500 pound race suit in this life, in fact I didn’t even know it was possible to spend that much on a child. So you learn something every day.

If you have female swimmers, then the higher end techsuits are £300 - £450.

I quite envy those with boys when I see the price of the girls' suits.

I really hope Swim England don't ban the Fina Approved suits for children for no other reason than I have snapped up a lot of 2nd hand bargains and now have fina labelled suits to last DS a few years of growing none of which have cost me more than £10 it would be silly to have to bin them to buy new non fina labelled jammers.