What does tags mean in swimming

What events should I register my swimmer for? If you are on the Waterloo Swim team your swimmer is ready and able to swim any event available to them at registration. If you ever have questions about what events to pick have your swimmer talk to their coach about it and get their input. You can always email the coach or submit a comment during registration.

What do I bring to a meet? A lot of it depends on the venue. For outdoor meets you will need a tent and lawn chairs. The meet information will give details about the venue, but veteran parents are the best to ask about a pool that is new to you. Be sure to pack healthy snacks and drinks for your swimmer. Your swimmer will need deck clothes and shoes to wear between events to keep their muscles and feet warm. They need multiple towels as well. The coaches will explain this to the swimmers.

Does my child have to show up for warm-up if their event is several hours later in the meet? Yes, unless their coach gives them specific instructions to show up at a different time.

What are the different time standards and what are the used for? There are different time standards for different meets. These standards allow for meets to be catered to swimmers of like abilities for time purposes as well as competitive purposes.

It is important that you pay attention to the time standard requirements in the meet information. Should I register my swimmer for every meet? Short answer is yes, if possible.

Long answer is if your schedule permits it is best to swim at as many meets as you can to achieve better time standards.

More importantly, your swimmers practice really heard nearly every day and the only way they see the fruits of that labor is to race! This is done by circling or initialing next to their name on a list posted on deck in the morning of the day that event is scheduled.

Why is this required? It helps the admin create a true heat sheet for the sake of filling all lanes and potentially saving time in the meet.

The meet information will say what the deadline time is. Do not rely on the coach or another teammate to do it. Inform your coach immediately if your child is unable to swim in the Finals due to an illness or injury. The coach may be able to talk with the meet director and work something out.

Do not no show or you will be held responsible for the consequences. What is circle-in or positive check-in? Why do I need to be a timer? Every pool and every meet requires dozens of different volunteers. Different from summer league, most clubs do not have a sign up process so it is incumbent on the parents to volunteer at the meet. A team is usually assigned a number of timer volunteer slots based on the size of their team.

You can group up with several parents and take shifts. What is a Chase Start or Flyover Start? Chase Starts are used in long course meets to help speed up the meet. Swimmers will start from both ends of the pool in a staggering pattern. The deck referees and starters at both ends work closely together to orchestrate this format.

What the swimmer needs to know is which end of the pool to report to and to exit the pool immediately upon finishing to get out of the way of the swimmer behind them who will be turning. Fly-over Starts are also used to speed up a meet. Swimmers in the previous heat stay in the water until the next heat has started. Then they exit the pool. This format is not used for backstroke events. What the swimmer needs to know is to stay in the water and stay still under the blocks until the swimmer after them dives in.

What is a Finals Only Event? They are typically relays and long distance events. The meet information will list all events that are Finals Only events for that meet. It is Waterloo policy that if your swimmer or relay team has the opportunity to swim in the evening finals they will, unless otherwise discussed with your coach.

What else is different about distance events? Aside from the event usually being a Finals Only event and having the requirement to circle in or positive check in, distance events require that the swimmer provide their own timer AND counter. The meet information will explain which events require these.

These items are listed under group descriptions on our site. All girls must wear a swim cap during practices. Any boy with hair over their eyes or hair that comes over mouth during side breathing must also wear a swim cap. We have these available for purchase at our front counters. We ask that all swimmers rinse off in our showers prior to getting in each day. This helps keep our water clean more than you know! Also — no bandaids or gum allowed in the pool, and no outside food or drink allowed in the swim center.

Short Course is defined as the season where the meets are held in 25 yard pools. It typically correlates with the school year, from September through the spring. Long Course is defined as the season where meets are held in pools with the 50 meter configuration. It typically correlates with the summer season, May-August. This means there are short course championship meets for all of these standards as well as Long Course Championship meets as well.

It is the premiere 14 and under state championship meet in the country. It is one of our team goals each season to compete for this team title. The TAGS time standards are updated each year, calculated on a formula that takes the 20th place time from the current meet and averages it in with the prior two years.

Approximately half of our kids choose to enter and attend meets. We like to offer meets competitions about once every 5 to 6 weeks targeted to our respective groups.

These are very low key meets, little pressure, simply designed to allow the kids to experience competition in an unthreatening environment. We enjoy having the luxury to host these at our own pools and can typically conduct them in under a two hour time frame, which the parents LOVE! We also will have more advanced meets offered, some held locally at UT, or surrounding areas, other times there may be a great meet for a couple of our groups in San Antonio, Dallas, or Houston.

Again, these are optional. Well, maybe possible — if they swim only two meets total in their whole lifetime I suppose it can happen. Let me explain: We work on a lot of skills week in and week out. We work on developing good habits, and chasing away the bad ones. This is a long journey. It is all part of the process. Everything we do is geared for the long haul — the life lessons, the ups, the downs, the peaks, the valleys.

And let me tell you right here, the valleys can be long and lonesome in this sport if not mentally prepared to handle! We want them to learn to enjoy the whole process. We also want YOU to learn to enjoy it — the ups and the downs.

Go to www. This will bring you to the log in page. Log in to your account using your email address and password. On the Athlete Signup page, click on the name of the swimmer that you wish to sign up. On the next page, chose the option "YES, Please sign swimmer up for this event".

A list of events will appear. Click on the box that appears before the swimmer's time on the left hand side of the screen to select which events you want to enter. Once you have completed this, click the Save Changes button at the bottom right hand side of the screen.

The coaching staff will approve each swimmer's entries to complete the process. We have a meet schedule that we post online and we adhere to. We add meets from time to time, and some meets get canceled for various reasons. Every so often a family will be traveling out of state and will ask to participate in an out of state meet. We usually have no problem with that. We sit together as a Team and we warm up together as a Team.

If your swimmer shows up late for the team warm up, they will miss critical elements of the entire experience. The bonding, the jokes by the coaches, allowing to get into the right mindset for the meet are all part of the pre-warm up and warm up times.

When you run late, the stress levels go up exponentially. Leave the house early, be packed the night before, and arrive stress free on time! It depends on the venue. If a short Nitro at the Races meet, just a towel, cap, goggles, and a sweathshirt. You may also want to pack a few healthy snacks, bottled water, maybe a sports drink or two.

My son asked me to make a memory quilt his senior year of high school. I did the same for my daughter and they do use them and treasure the memories those quilts hold. The good news is there are companies that will make t-shirt quilts for your swimmers, as well. Why do you think these small rewards are so important to our swimmers? You can read more parenting tips on her blog. Notify of.