Poolside Chat - parents of competitive swimmers continued

[Glittertwins]

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

Outs have to swim what coaches tell them at OMs 😂 They are pretty good at doing events they are asked to do though.

We get away with doing what we want at meets to an extent. They had to swim out of favour events at club champs which threw out some interesting race entries, certainly in this house but we're done with good grace 😆

*were

Mine was always a sprinter (despite not being allowed to specialise until age 15) but was remarkably good at dodging anything longer than a 200 (and even then it was only the occasional 200 back and free).

Mine used to be allergic to anything over 100m but seems to have got over that now.

Same here 🤣🤣🤣

Until BS and then his club told him to do 400m (after his good swim at British nats)

Now he's racing an 800m free in December as it'll help his 400.

He's obliging. But o wouldn't say he's thrilled 🤣🤣

And absolutely he proved in the summer he's a great mid distance swimmer 🥳

Still a bit weird for us. Well, he's happy so that's good enough. Just have to see how the winter regionals go

Yeah we are just seeing what winters bring. Ds is not a great SC swimmer because his disability is mostly in his legs but it's good race practice and hopefully confidence building 🫣

Yeah that isn’t the case at smaller clubs. It’s more about what the kids want to do and enjoy.

We are in the process of getting over that still. It hasn’t helped her.

Well DS is nothing if not consistently odd. Swims open water faster than pool and best event are 50m free or 1500m free!

That's good going!!

Versatile!!!!!

I was being slightly tongue in cheek about doing what coaches say!!! Swimmers can choose but coaches will ask them to do some events they think they could do well at when in age group develop men otherwise they try and stick to 2/3 preferred races at 11 and that's not great for their development as they write themselves off of what they are good at.

My ds generally only swims 40/100/400m free - but he's 19 so can specialise now. He does throw in the odd swim of fly or back or IM occasionally to keep a recent time.

The same happened to my DS last year as he was age group. Luckily he's open age this year and there were no rejections.

But I can't believe they learnt nothing from last year 🙄

We had the opposite with dd1 she swam all strokes fairly well. So she ended up with too much variety in stroke but not enough in distance.

Dd2 really is pretty hopeless at everything apart from freestyle otoh so it makes distance variation easier. She may develop in fly as she gets older her stroke looks nice but she’s slow. She’s okay at breaststroke also. She swims all the 50s and 100 breast, she needs to do a 200 in that next.

I know they in theory should swim everything, but that is very very demanding if they don’t take it mega-seriously. Dd1 also detests 200IM.

They don't do all at every meet. So phase 1 the coaches may ask them to focus on 200's at one meet and then focus on a specific stroke at all distances 50-200m at another or all 50's/100's of different strokes.

But our club does a lot of meets in phase 1. Sometimes I think too many!

Yeah but the reality of life means there’s always something. They have a cold/ their period/ minor niggle/ it clashes with something at school/ they swim badly for no reason. So it just doesn’t go to plan.

Probably the ones who are actually going to be good are more robotic/ consistent than my pair 🤣🤣

Winter nationals all entered.

Thought the cost of races seemed a lot until I brought entry tickets that cost more!

However I think it's because the races are cheaper than I've paid before rather than the entry being particularly expensive compared to previously? Plus they didn't have over 60's discounted tickets which I can usually get because I split the week with my dad and get cheaper tickets for his half 🤣

I'm waiting to see if there are any improvements this coming weekend. Have 3 times which are well inside the published times and 2 more potentials where only a whisker outside. Not sure if they will get entered though, it's more of a sense of achievement!

Wow. Sounds like he's doing great to possibly get 5 times and be guaranteed 3! They are tough!

Ds only entered 3 of his 5. He's focussing on freestyle events. It'll just take it out of him doing events that he doesn't need iyswim?

He has to get his 400m free down by about 10 seconds by next April! 🫣

I don't believe its guaranteed entry even if he is well inside his times hence the waiting to see if he can go faster. We'll do the entries and keep our fingers crossed!!

Is it not? I thought if you got time you qualified?

Not sure about the junior age group. Will need to check T&C on it

Not guaranteed (just look at the noise around the NE regionals this weekend)

f) The Group Competition Lead has the authority to adjust the number of entries accepted to ensure the smooth running of the Championships