MEET INFORMATION
QUALIFYING STANDARDS
WARM UPS -- Arrive 15 minutes before our scheduled warm up at all sessions.
            Friday Timed Finals - 5:00pm, Meet start @ 6:30pm
                       Timeline ends @ TBA


            Saturday Prelims - 7:00am, Meet start @ 9am
                       Timeline ends @ TBA
            Saturday Finals will not start before 2 hours from the end of Prelims


            Sunday Prelims - 7:00am, Meet start @ 9am
                       Timeline ends @ TBA
            Sunday Finals will not start before 2 hours from the end of Prelims



MEET RESPONSIBILITY --  We will be responsible for timing during this meet.  Please come prepared to do this.


ELIGIBILITY REPORT
PROPOSED TEAM ENTRIES
FINAL TEAM ENTRIES
FINAL TEAM RESULTS


This is a championship meet and has qualifying times.  If your child meets the qualifying times to swim in this meet, they need to attend.

A championship meet runs as a special format.  They run a preliminary swim to rank all swimmers.  The top 8 swimmers have a swim-off in a finals session of the meet. 

Preliminary swims are in the morning and all swimmers participate.  A preliminary swim is seeded differently than a normal meet.  Most meets are seeded slowest to fastest.  The fastest 8 swimmers get to swim in the last heat, where the fastest person gets the middle lane.  The next two fastest swimmers get the lanes next to him.  They continue this way to fill 8 lanes.  The next fastest 8 swimmers get the previous heat, and they are seeded by the same procedure.  This continues until all swimmers are in a heat and lane.
For a preliminary swim, the heats are set with the fastest 3 swimmers getting the middle lane of the last 3 heats.  So in an 8 heat event, the fastest swimmer gets the middle lane of heat 8, the next fastest swimmer gets the middle lane of heat 7, and the next fastest swimmer gets the middle lane of heat 6.  The next three fastest swimmers get the most advantageous lane next to the fastest swimmer in each of those heats.  So the 4th fastest swimmer gets to swim next to the fastest swimmer in heat 8.  The 5th fastest gets the lane next to the fastest swimmer in heat 7, and the 6th fastest gets the lane next to the fastest swimmer in heat 6.  This will continue until all of the lanes are full in the last 3 heats.  If there are more than 3 heats, those heats all swim first and they are seeded just like a normal meet would be seeded.  This is called Championship or Circle Seeding.

After a preliminary swim is over, all swimmers are ranked based on their time.  This is not their place!  A swimmer's place is not determined until a final swim has been completed.  The top 8 ranking swimmers from the prelims are selected to compete for a final place, at the finals session of the meet (this would be the session of the meet that matters).  Those swimmers will pair up in the evening to swim the same event to see who gets to take home which medal.  The preliminary swim time is used to seed the meet.  The fastest swimmer from the prelim session gets to swim in the fastest lane, in the middle of the pool.  The next two fastest swimmers get to swim next to him and this continues until all 8 swimmers are assigned a lane based on their preliminary swim time.  The only swimmers that are given a place at the meet are the swimmers that swim in finals; all other swimmers just have a rank based on their time swum.  In other words, no swimmer will get an award or score points if they do not compete at finals.  In rare cases, a top 8 swimmer may scratch an event for finals.  They are forfeiting their place at the meet and are taking a "time only swim".  To fill this spot, the next fastest swimmer from prelims is asked to step in and compete for a place.  The replacing swimmer is allowed to medal and the scratching swimmer forfeits his rank.  The fastest person to NOT make a final swim spot is called an alternate, and most championship meets will declare 2 alternates (the fastest 2 swimmers to NOT make a final spot).  These alternates are asked to show up for finals in the case that a finalist misses their race.  If a finalist misses their race, they forfeit their rank for that event and they are scratched from the rest of the meet.  The alternate is asked to step up and take that spot to compete for a place in that event.

I hope this explains the championship meet format a little.  It is very exciting to be in a finals session.  They usually parade swimmers from a selected location to the starting blocks while they play music to get the kids "pumped up".  They also announce the names of each swimmer before they get on the blocks to start the race.  This draws a lot of attention from the audience to every race and puts some competitive pressure on the swimmers to go fast.  If you qualify to attend this meet and are not a finalist, you may consider going to watch the finals session on Saturday evening to see how this kind of meet is run.