Gala Selection and Open Meets

Post date: Mar 5, 2014 8:28:06 PM

Jeremy Latham, Head Coach

As a club we currently only compete in a few galas each year, most of which are the Hertfordshire swimming League galas: Majors and Peanuts. Having so few events to enter and with the restrictions of how many swimmers we can enter in each gala, we have to select the strongest possible team. The league positions are important to our standing as a club and underline the fact that we are a competitive club offering local, able swimmers the opportunity to compete at a good level.

Some of you may know we have been looking at joining more leagues so we can have a wider range of swimmers in the squads competing and we hope to enable this to happen as soon as is feasible. However, please bear with us as I have only been with the club for a year and the current committee is also new to running the club. During this last year we’ve made substantial changes to the way the club works, is operated and our goals for the forthcoming years.

Another way I would like to get swimmers competing more is doing competitions call Open Meets. These are how you are able to enter the Hertfordshire County Championships and move up in the national competing ladder. To be able to qualify for county, regional and national competitions you need to acquire licensed times which range from level 4 to level 1.

Level 3 events require you to qualify for the time the host club sets for each event but the time does not have to be licensed (unless the host club specifies otherwise) which means all your child has to know is what time they currently swim for the event they want to swim in and see if their time is faster than e qualifying time set by the host club.

Level 2 and 1 meets are more challenging and require fast licensed times that have to be achieved in a 25m pool or 50m pool. These levels will not be for everyone in the club as these will require very fast qualifying times. Please speak to me, Vanessa or Sam to find out more about swimming at this level.

We have a few selected Open Meets that we will be attending as a club, please look at your child’s times on Swim Club Manager or if you have a achieved a licensed time you can go onto the British Swimming website and look up you child’s licensed time there. For Open Meets where we swim as a club there will be cut off dates for entry that we need to adhere to, so please get your entries in on time. Places can fill up fast at these events.

Please be aware that times achieved at Majors. Peanuts, Brocks/Badgers, Letchworth and other competitions that we attend are not licensed times.

Also please note: all times set at club championships are now level 4 licensed which means you can enter up to a Level 2 competition if you qualify for the times set at that level, so if you want your child to compete more get them to the Club Champs (held in the autumn at Royston pool). It’s a great opportunity for all the children in the club to swim, achieve a time and perhaps even win a place. It’s a friendly event, without and pressure run by people they know well – coaches, committee and parents – so it makes a great introduction to competition for new swimmers.