Swim Meet Outline

What Happens At A Swim Meet?

1. Arrive at the meet and check in with the Team Parent.
2. Join with your team, and prepare for the meet. Make sure you have your equipment, and began stretching exercises.
3. Swim warm-up laps
4. Join your team for the opening ceremony, and then return to the team area.
5. Stay in the assigned team area until called by the Coach or the Parent Volunteers to swim. While in the team area, the swimmers should follow rules of good behavior, eat fruit, drinks, snacks and pay attention to the TEAM PARENTS. Don’t forget to cheer on our team!
Tornados – 2007

Opening Ceremony
6. When called to swim, move to the Clerk of Course area, and wait for instructions. The Clerk of Course will line the swimmers up according to which heat and which lane they will swim.
   1. Move through the Clerk of Course area until your heat comes up – you will be called to the lane by the Starter/Announcer.
   2. The Clerk of Course Runner takes the heat sheets with the names of the swimmers by heat and by lane to the Head Time Recorder.
7. Move to assigned lane and follows the instructions of the Starter/Announcer.
   1. The Starter will check with the Timers to make sure that they are ready.
   2. The Starter will then announce the stroke, the distance and the heat number.
   3. Will instruct the swimmers to take their mark.
   4. Will sound the horn.
   5. In the event of a false start, the Starter will sound the horn several times to let the swimmers know to stop.
8. At the sound of the horn the swimmer will dive in and swim the heat
   1. Four Stroke Judges, two from each team, will watch the swimmers.
      2008 Tornados
      
      Relay member dives in!
      1. DQ (disqualification) slips will be issued when illegal kicks, strokes, flip turns or touches occur.
      2. The Stroke Judge takes DQ slips to the scorers (one from each team) at the scoring table.
   2. There will be two (2) Timers in each lane.
      1. They will start their stop watches at the sound of the horn and will stop their watches when the swimmer touches the wall at the end of the heat.
      2. In the event that a timer misses the start, or end of the heat, they will raise their hand and a back-up timer will step in for them.
9. At the end of the heat the swimmer returns to the team area and waits to be called to the next heat they are to swim.
Tornados – 2008
 

Waiting for their heat

10. The official time is written on the heat sheet by the Recorder.
11. The heat sheet with the official times is taken to the scorers at the scoring table by the Runner.
12. The scorers compare any DQ slips to the times for the heat and records the scores.
13. The Head Scorer makes sure that everything runs smoothly between the Stroke Judges and the Scorers, should a problem arise the League Reps will be called in to make a decision to stop the meet or find a solution to the problem.
14. The scores are given to the Ribbon Writers so that they can write in the name of the swimmer and their time for the event.
15. Score of the meet will be announced after the IM event. The final score will be announced at the end of the meet after the scorers have completed the scoring.
Tornados – 2008

Cool, really cool!

Miscellaneous

Concessions will be sold at home meets, the stand is run by the Concessions Coordinator and many volunteers. Swimmers should not eat heavy food sold at the concessions stand, until they have finished swimming all of their events!

In the event of a meet or practice postponement, you will be notified via email – this information will also be available on Thornhill’s website www.thornhillnc.net under ‘pool’ – you will see the Tornados link there.

If the weather turns at a meet, DO NOT depart the pool until the coaches have notified you that this meet has been canceled.  In most cases, the teams will try to finish the meet if at all possible.  The coaches will circulate through the area, including the parking lot, to keep the team updated.

Please remember we need every family to volunteer. Let’s be fair and spread the work around, we’re sure you will find it fun and interesting to be part of the team! We have outlined the various volunteer roles on our web page, Volunteers.