USMS Swimmers in USA Swim Meets & Rules for starts

You must be a USA Swimming member to swim at USA Swimming sanctioned events. You can be either a USA-S or USMS member at dual sanctioned events. As for your second point, contact the meet director to see what they need for proof of proficiency.

Hi everyone, I am an unattached swimmer who is looking to enter meets soon. Do master swimmers have to stick to only competing in masters swim meets or can we branch out to meets listed on USA Swimming (I am aware that many require qualifying times)? Second, I noticed if I am not accompanied by a coach many meets require that the swimmer be certified as proficient in starts...Below is a clip from one of the meets I was looking at. Has anyone ever done this or know the process? "Any swimmer entered in the meet must be certified by a USA Swimming member-coach as being proficient in performing a racing start or must start each race from within the water. When unaccompanied by a member-coach, it is the responsibility if the swimmer or the swimmer’s legal guardian to ensure compliance with this requirement." Any info would be great!! I am the South Texas LMSC Sanction chair and have dual sanctioned many USA swimming meets. I encourage you to talk to your LMSC sanction chair to understand all the in and outs of dual sanctions. LCM and SCM fall under FINA for records and SCY meets do not. Anyway there are quite a few things you need to have done i.e. meet results submitted to your sanction chair to go to the top ten recorder etc. I encourage you to talk to your LMSC chair and sanction chair so you have all the info before you swim in a USA meet.

Since I was a USA Swimming coach for awhile, I can provide information on the diving. USA Swimming requires paperwork that a swimmer is certified to dive from the blocks before they can do it in a meet. So this clause has been added to most USA Swimming meets because they want to make sure a swimmer can actually dive before trying it in a meet. I personally have swam once in a co-sanctioned meet and asked the clerk of course before hand if they needed to witness my start, and they said no. Basically I believe that this is just to help them if you get hurt on a start you can't come back and blame them. Mark

Okay. So I don't have to provide some kind of paperwork that says I am able to dive off a block? From what you are saying it sounds like it is more of a fine print statement to prevent the host from getting in trouble.

I've been in a few dual sanctioned USA and Master swim meets and most of the master swimmers had no coach present. Masters have their own warm up lanes in the meets that I have been in. I would say do not worry and if you have any questions you can always ask the meet director for clarification. It was not too long ago that I too was an unattached swimmer and in my first meet after a 35+ year absence, I went to the sprint lane to try a few starts. You should try a masters meet first to get a few starts under your belt before going to a meet with USA swimmers.

You have to remember that the USA-Swimming rule book is written primarily from the perspective of young age group swimmers. There are some very specific regulations for teaching young swimmers safe technique for block starts: Must be taught by a certified coach, minimum of six feet of water, progressive technique that starts from sitting on the edge of the deck, etc. There's an official form that USA-S coaches are supposed to sign off on and keep on file for each of their swimmers. Obviously, it's primarily a safety thing. That being said, as an USA-S official, I've never seen it be an issue at any meets where I've worked as a starter, where someone asked to see a swimmer's start training certification. (A lot of kids have no clue about the start protocol and whistles, but that's another issue...).