Poolside Chat - parents of competitive swimmers continued

[Glittertwins]

Getting a bit close to the end of the previous one!

I was thinking around the time that the short course regionals are on or just afterwards.

Yeah that would make sense but it's a short window!

I guess that doesn't matter though!

Our regionals entry was quite late too, Entries closed yesterday but I think the system didn't open until the end of September

Ours opened quite early I think because I have to enter ds via their system directly as a para and did it weeks ago. However we don't close until 25th as some counties in region do a winter counties.

I guess I'm just not really aware of timescales because I always have to enter ds directly counties and above rather than just nationals - I should probably pay more attention 🫣🤣

https://www.swimmingresults.org/events/sesc23mc/

nov 1st

Thankyou

Thanks!

Why oh why will our region and county not adopt consideration times! We only have qualifying times and for the first time since DS has been involved age group winter regionals have had to do rejections. DS has been rejected for a few but he doesnt mind he still has at least 1 swim each session. But we do have some very upset 1st time qualifiers who only had 1 swim and now have none 😪. If they published consideration times at least it would be clearer to the young swimmers and new swim parents that despite getting the time they might not actually get to swim!

So in reality they’re not qualification times, they’re consideration times?

That’s really poor - they should either have qualification times that guarantee acceptance combined with slower consideration times that allow additional (slower) swimmers that can be accommodated if there is time in the schedule or just have consideration times.

Exactly. Its really not fair on such young children. I 100% appreciate they cannot accommodate everyone but like you say if they had guaranteed qualification times then consideration times at least you could set the kids expectations accordingly.

That’s a shame, a combination of qualification and consideration times seems the most sensible way of balancing filling the meet without being subscribed to me, although I don’t know if there are pitfalls to it I haven’t thought of. You’d have thought they would have set the times by looking at rankings to get an idea of likely numbers entering

Our winter regionals have gone the other way and they are doing a second round of entries with slightly easier times. This means my eldest who had just missed the time originally has now qualified, subject to the entry getting accepted. Ours only has junior and senior times though, no age groups

We have auto times and then consideration times.

Previously just auto which I'm not sure why the changed it for a bit.

They are tough though! Just 1 time for all age groups despite it being age and youth competition with over 15's and unders.

I suspect the pitfall is logistical, large numbers potentially of entries to refund. Probably more disappointment.

Our winter regionals got easier too. I think it’s because it clashes with the second weekend of half term. It wasn’t enough for DD1 but she has another year in juniors so maybe next year.

Disappointment on qualification is part of swimming though really. We’ve had much faster county times released in the last 2 weeks meaning at the last minute kids who would have had several times last year had none. They then slightly eased them (presumably due to backlash). But have warned there may be rejections (the format has also changed which tbf is good but it will take more time.)

I don’t think you can gauge who will enter that well from numbers. Dd1 had 10 times last year but she wouldn’t have entered 10 events. This year she has 5 so will enter all of them. So the reduction in entries really isn’t a direct relationship to the number of people qualifying.

Ours is based on targeted number of entries and so times on rankings. Our region isn't generally known for good decisions (🤣) but on this they publish it all including the table they worked it out at.

We have some SCR on published results but not loads so the system obviously worked quite well and people knew what to enter.

Agree it's tough and something they need to learn to be resilient for. We have 2 swimmers who are both brilliant at a stroke (national final level this summer) and both edging slightly above the other all the time. Their entry time was 0.5 secs different. One qualified and the other didn't. The margins are so close.

For ds he wants to know how many for each because of heats! As a para swimmer his entry times are slower than the ABs. But he's faster than the other paras on freestyle and he prefers being slowest in heat rather than fastest! But he also knows and understands he has to race his own race and pace himself so whatever happens he has to get on and do what he's got to do!!! In his case it's aiming for a 4:30.00 400m free (slowest pace!) . That's 4 sec pb 🤞

Surely though you could potentially end up with lower qts for older age groups that way? There are more 14 year old swimmers than 15s in the girls (the 15 has always been light it isn’t just drop outs).

We only have one set of county champs and they are a combination of qualifying times and then consideration times. Not entirely sure how they set the qualifying times as this years only had 1 swimmer who made the qualifying time for some events and the rest were some way behind on the consideration time.
When they had just the qualifying times, kids were rejected despite having them and I don't believe it was made clear. There were some pretty upset swimmers, it was just before our time here.
Winter regionals are just open age and if you have the time, you're in. I've not known them to reject entries.

I think it does affect the times more in counties when it's age groups. So dependent on your cohort year you may qualify or not with a faster/slower time than age groups above and below.

But it all equals out at national level - where again you can get quicker winners in a 14yo age group than 15.

But I guess it's no different from being in counties or regionals where the times are harder overall than others?

It's cut throat!!! But I'm not sure if there's a better way? I guess if there was they'd have found it?!

I think counties should be more about giving the kids the chance to compete though than regionals/ nationals. Most never get to regionals or nationals particularly if they are the one rejected so it’s one chance to do long course.

Ours has the policy of rejecting evenly so that shouldn’t happen anyway.

I think it’s easier to plan a meet if you have QTs (guaranteed swims) and CTs (use to fill up remaining places in heats). As a gala organiser you know how many heats of each event you can fit into a session, your QT swimmers know that they’re definitely in and the CT swimmers know that they need to wait until the draft programme is issued.

It also enables you to juggle the events slightly depending on the entries received - eg if you don’t get many 400m entries and most are CTs you might be able to drop a heat which gives an extra few minutes to add in say 3 heats of 100s where you have a lot of entries (also means that you get more fee income).

I agree about giving kids a chance. I do think county size affects things though. I know there's something about the slowest swimmer in on eBay group won't be slower than the slowest in the age group below.

Tbh I'm not 100% sure because ds is para so different qualifying rules. But I'm going to look it up because it's bugging me now 🤣

hampshireswimming.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-hcasa-conditions.pdf

This was this years conditions.

Number of swimmers but have to make qualifying time. Condition 5.

hampshireswimming.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-hcasa-considerations-times.pdf

Ours had a maximum of 24 in the younger age groups with the QT and next fastest CT and then they reduce it on the distance events.

Yeah, the consideration times are generous, a quick check at 14 girls age group shows person in 24th for 50 free has a time of 30.37 and the consideration time is 34 for 15. So there is a lot of potential for rejections there. They must enjoy admin is all I can say. But it’s 32 for 14….

Our conditions aren’t published yet to share, they have just been sent to the club.

The only advantage of doing it that way is it would encourage kids to swim hated events.

Is that regionals or counties?

Our regionals had 76 for 50's across all age groups although finals are split age and youth. QT are a % of the top 76 and the CT to back fill. It depends how many enter with auto QT to how many can back fill. They have less swimmers for 100, 200 etc down to distance but also less entries with auto QT if that makes sense?

Saw a post on FB earlier about NER. Lots of 200s that were SCR but you couldn't even enter in SER with those times.

Part of me sees why regions do it differently but part of me thinks a standardised format may work better? Not really sure why or how though 🫣🤣