I am thinking of participating a swim meet, just to experience it once in my life. I had a lot of reservations about signing up for a meet. But after reading some of the threads in the forums, my fears have subsided.
1. I can't do flip turns very well. It seems I can do open turns instead.
2. I fear my goggles will pop off during my dive. Looks like I can start in the water which I am more comfortable with anyways.
But there are a few things that I'm still wondering about.
1. I'm pretty slow. I've read somewhere that most meets have a "slow heat"? What does that mean really? So you could have multiple people being #1 for the same age group? And how can you tell if a meet has several heats?
2. Why is it when I view some of the past event results, some events have rankings for the top 3 swimmers and some have only 1? I am attaching a screenshot of what I am talking about. Does that mean there was only 1 person swimming in that event?
3. How does one finish off for freestyle? Do you have to press a buzzer?
Good for you willing trying it.
1. Heats are usually broken down from slowest to fastest from the swimmer's seed time. That seed time is entered by the swimmer at the time of (swim meet) registration and it should be what they think they will swim. Sometimes if it's unknown (first time swimmer, or a swimmer back from a break\injury) then they may allow you to enter "NT" or No Time. Then that swimmer will be automatically placed in the slowest heat. Some meets will not allow a "NT" so a best guess is requested\required.
More on the heats... if there are 18 swimmers for a particular event, the slowest 6 swimmers will be in heat 1, the next 6 will be in heat 2 and the fastest 6 will be in heat 3.
2. As for the results of the meet, events are broken down into age groups (and also male\female), every 5 years (20-24, 25-29, 30-34, etc...). So it's possible there may be more in one age group than another. Also regardless of the heat, the fastest time in that age group will be ranked #1.
3. As for the finish. Most of the time there is an electronic touch pad. It's attached to the wall underneath the starting blocks at the water line and extending down a couple of feet. You just need to touch it. However if there are no touch pads (unlikely) then there will be timers with stop watches and you just need to touch the wall.
Good for you willing trying it.
1. Heats are usually broken down from slowest to fastest from the swimmer's seed time. That seed time is entered by the swimmer at the time of (swim meet) registration and it should be what they think they will swim. Sometimes if it's unknown (first time swimmer, or a swimmer back from a break\injury) then they may allow you to enter "NT" or No Time. Then that swimmer will be automatically placed in the slowest heat. Some meets will not allow a "NT" so a best guess is requested\required.
More on the heats... if there are 18 swimmers for a particular event, the slowest 6 swimmers will be in heat 1, the next 6 will be in heat 2 and the fastest 6 will be in heat 3.
2. As for the results of the meet, events are broken down into age groups (and also male\female), every 5 years (20-24, 25-29, 30-34, etc...). So it's possible there may be more in one age group than another. Also regardless of the heat, the fastest time in that age group will be ranked #1.
3. As for the finish. Most of the time there is an electronic touch pad. It's attached to the wall underneath the starting blocks at the water line and extending down a couple of feet. You just need to touch it. However if there are no touch pads (unlikely) then there will be timers with stop watches and you just need to touch the wall.
