The USA Swimming Senior Development Committee has proposed significant changes to Sectional Championships, including meet size restrictions, universal qualifying times (sort of), and requiring one 18-and-under heat per event final. These changes are largely due to the rapidly expanding 13-and-over athlete base; the Sectionals Task Force found there has been a 40% increase in the number of 13-and-over USA Swimming members since the inception of Sectionals meets in 2000.
While some Sectional meets are well-run and highly effective for swimmers, others are bloated and overcrowded, highlighted by jammed warmup pools and five-hour preliminary sessions (pretty much all of us have been through one of these before). In an effort to equalize these meets and provide a more natural progression from to Junior Nationals and senior-level meets, the Senior Development Committee has proposed a number of countrywide changes.
A summary of the most important proposals:
- No Sectional meets will be longer than 3.5 days.
- The Summer Sectionals should conclude within an 8-22 day window prior to Senior Nationals/U.S. Open or Junior Nationals (whichever comes first).
- Spring and Summer Sectional meets must have one 18-and-under final heat. This a meet strategy USA Swimming has progressively utilized over the last couple of years, including last month at World Championship Trials.
- “Optimal” Sectional Championship sizes have been set based on whether or not a meet is run on one or two courses. For one course, optimal size is 700 athletes, while meets with two courses should not exceed 1000 athletes. If more than 800 athletes (one course) or 1100 athletes (two courses) are entered, the Zone must tighten the time standards, or split into two meets the following year.
- Each Sectional meet will have a final reserved for only 18-and-under athletes.
- Nation-wide time standards will be set yearly by the Senior Development Committee. To ensure enough participation in less populous zones, individual Sections can choose to have slower qualifying times (but not faster).
Our section has an issue with teams who enter swimmers under falsified times. Ex: A 13-year-old swimmer with our previous team competed at 2012 Sectionals, coming in last and well below the falsified times submitted. Since changing teams, this now 14-year-old swimmer has dropped several seconds but has yet to achieve the entry time submitted in 2012. The coach, athlete, and family must deal with knowingly cheating, (despite USAS’ claims of integrity in competition), and they are fined with a slap on the hand, if that. But consider that an athlete–your child or charge– with legitimate qualifying times may lose their opportunity with a cap on participation numbers.
I don’t like the idea of sectionals only being 3.5 days. I have been going to sectionals since I was 11 and prelims are already longer than they should be, shortening the meet would require putting more events on a single day making prelims be even longer! And if they want less people at sectionals they could do what western zone does and not let people from outside the zone come. Or it would be nice if some of the bigger facilities would host sectionals. And I do not see the point with the 18-under heat, I think there are a lot more 18-unders at the meet than 19-overs so why do that. Another problem with doing 3.5 have days… Read more »
It sounds like there is a lot of trouble elsewhere. Region VIII in the Central Zone doesn’t seem to have as many or the problems others do and we do several of the things on this list already. I certainly do making the summer meet 3.5 days. It is a comfortable format for us that makes it possible to swim 6 of your best events and potentially not have a double on one of the days. Our meet could certainly get faster both standards and swimmers, but right now it is a manageable meet in terms of size and hours per session.
The sectional meets and the needs of each zone – even each region of each zone – are so different in each part of the country. Why on earth are we talking about standardizing the meets. I am so sick of usa swimming trying to micro-manage everything. I have absolutely no confidence that some national comittee can set up a standard format that is good for all areas. Shoot, it’s hard enough for each zone to figure out what’s best for their regions.
I agree… One size does not fit all!
I like the idea of Junior Grand Prix meets… particularly short course. As far as long course goes, there are many many traditional meets that afford great competition throughout the USA. Not sure we need to add any more… Only so much money to be spent by parents and clubs in a three month period.
For many clubs, the LC season is a lot longer than 3 months… A lot start mixing in LC in January. I, for one, would welcome a Jr Grand Prix type of circuit similar to the Sr one… a SC meet in Nov, Juniors in December, then LC meets in January, March, April, May and June.
Agreed – After January 1 – long course junior grand prix meets
I would welcome a restructured sectionals meet. I am in the essz and I won’t be at sectionals in Athens the next 4 days because the meet runs way too long in my opinion. Luckily there are enough other options the same weekend to swim LCM in the area.
I also talked to a few coaches yesterday that struggle hopping back and forth between meets this weekend. They will split their time between UGA, SCAT and Dynamo. I hope they have a driver….
i cant speak for other areas, but the eastern section southern zone sectional meets are among the fastest in the us. the standards are generally 1-3% off of nationals. and even in summer, plenty of 18/Unders return to finals which is a sign of how well trained those athletes are.
the meet is 3.5 days in spring (early march), 4 full days in summer (mid-july). this time frame works well. sectional meets should not be as expensive or time consuming as any of the national meets. small teams will struggle with how to staff the meet and practices.
but the meets have been struggling over the past few years.
neither meet is strongly attended because the essz is too… Read more »
Meet hosts get $10,000 from USA Swimming, and they have received this stipend for years. Meet hosts also decide if they want to open their meet to outside Sectional teams or close it. Many choose to close their Sectional meet. Some limit it to the first 100 or 150 athletes out of the zoned area. Some let it be a free for all. This one is not on USA Swimming.
One of the problems with the current Sectional meet is that some hosts (remember these are all over the country, so this doesn’t necessarily mean your host) slow down the time standards, crank up the entry fees, and use the meet as a money maker. It is not uncommon for… Read more »
From my view point pulling in $35,000 for hosting a sectional meet is not unreasonable.
Longer sectional meets are tough on parents, coaches and the host team,BUT what is really tough at shorter meets at this level is for a swimmer to swim the 1500 and the 200 fly or the 200 fr and the 400 fr or any other difficult combo on the same day.
If you shorten the meet you will NOT be able to avoid some difficult combo for the swimmers.
Agree that the length of the meet is a challenge to parents and hosts. But (for example) my son is a 400/800/1500/200Fly/200IM/400IM swimmer. That’s tough enough at a 4-day meet even if you don’t qualify or scratch a couple of finals. Does a 3.5 day meet schedule mean the .5 is one of the distance events and everything else fits into three days? Oof.
Interesting ideas out of the committee. I would also love to see a summer college invitational. Not sure ligisticly how it would work with USA swimming or NCAA compliance. My thoughts are to keep the summer sectional meet as a purely 18 & U meet (keeping in line with the development of our junior athletes). The majority of the 19+ athletes are at sectionals because they do not have national/us open cuts or they have cuts but are not training as seriously. This is a large group of athletes, many of which have been to sectionals 6-10 times in their career. Maybe they would benefit from a change of scenery. Just a thought!
I agree, college swimmers that are training hard over the summers, many at their respective colleges, are lost in the shuffle. No one really likes to see the college kids crushing the 15yr olds and taking over the final heats in the summer meets. But where else can they go? Where can college swimmer race after their conference and NCAA meets? Grand Prix meets are expensive and tough with class schedules. There are few LCM racing opportunities for college swimmers in May, June, July, other than back to the ol’ club meets for a bit and then they are expected to be tuned up to race at Nats and/or the Open.
Perhaps their could be a “college heat” reserved… Read more »