Swim Meet 101

Attending a swim meet for the first time can be a bit of a confusing or intimidating experience for new swimmers. This post is intended to be a guide to how meets work, so new swimmers and parents will know what to expect.

Sessions

Swim meets typically take place over a weekend, and are broken up into a number of sessions. Each session will have a warm up, followed by a number of different events. A typical meet might have a session on Friday afternoon, two sessions on Saturday, a session Sunday morning, and a Jamboree Sunday afternoon. Sessions can either be run as timed finals - where swimmers get one swim and the fastest time wins, or as separate heats and finals, where the top swimmers from the morning heats get a second swim in the evening to determine the winner.

Events, Heats and Lanes

An event is a particular race, say a 50M Freestyle, or a 100M Backstroke. Everyone who enters into an event will be seeded into heats, so each swimmer will be assigned a heat and lane for each event they enter. An example would be:

Event 1 Heat 4 Lane 8

This means the swimmer will be swimming in the 4th race of event 1 in lane 8.

Swimmers are placed into heats based on their entry time, and the heats are sorted slowest to fastest. Swimmers without a time are seeded first, based on age instead of entry time. So while swimmers compete in categories based on age and sex, the actual heat they race in will have other swimmers of a similar ability level across different categories.

A listing of all the event/heat/lane assignments is published for each session, and is called a heat sheet. Paper copies are provided to coaches, and are also published to an app called "Meet Mobile" that can be used to view heat sheets as well as results.

Seating arrangements

Different pools will have different options for seating. Some pools have large spectator areas where all the team parents and swimmers can sit together in the stands. Other facilities will have limited on deck seating, and swimmers will hang out in a gym or other space while waiting for their races. Coaches will be seated at a table poolside so they can watch the races and provide feedback.

Warmups

Warmups are generally the first thing that happens every session. Each team will be assigned  lane(s) for their swimmers to warm up in before the racing begins. Swimmers should arrive at least 15 minutes before warm up for their session so they have time to get ready.

Getting ready to race

Roughly 15 minutes before a swimmer is scheduled to race, they should head over to the coaches' table to discuss their upcoming race. Once they have their race plan, they can head over to the marshaling area where they will grouped with the other athletes in their race, and guided up to the starting blocks when it's their turn to race. After the race is done, they can head back to the coaches for feedback, then it's time to get dried off and rest up for the next race.