PVS October Open and Time Standards

[Anonymous]

New swim mom of a 9 year old boy here. I was looking over the times for the PVS October Open and it made me curious about the USA Swimming time standards. From just eyeballing it, the top boy in each event across all three sites usually has an AA time with just a few AAA times. There are usually just a couple AA/AAA times in each event. I'm not seeing any AAAA times over the three sites in any boys 9-10 event. I thought AAAA meant top 2%, AAA top 6% and AA top 8%. Most of the events have 150 to 200 swimmers over the three sites. It seems like most events should have at least one AAAA time, and every event should have a handful of AAA times. Are the best area swimmers not competing in these opens? Or is this just because this is early in the season? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding?

[Anonymous]

It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

So does that mean AAAA is actually less than 2%? I assume the spring championships have the best couple dozen swimmers out of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) in the area. If AAAA is 2%, you should see plenty of them at a meet like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

So does that mean AAAA is actually less than 2%? I assume the spring championships have the best couple dozen swimmers out of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) in the area. If AAAA is 2%, you should see plenty of them at a meet like that.

http://pvswim.org/2122meet/22-79rw.html

Here are the girls' results from JOs last spring, at a quick glance you see a few per event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

So does that mean AAAA is actually less than 2%? I assume the spring championships have the best couple dozen swimmers out of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) in the area. If AAAA is 2%, you should see plenty of them at a meet like that.

http://pvswim.org/2122meet/22-79rw.html

Here are the girls' results from JOs last spring, at a quick glance you see a few per event.

Should have said up to a few per event, I guess.

But the other thing is that the time standard is based on the top 2% at a given time, and then that "cut" is used for a period of time (Age group motivational times = 4y period, synced with Olympic quads). So, it's not the top 2% right now necessarily.

[Anonymous]

I always heard AAAA is top 100 or so times in country.

October open is early in the season and not championship format meets. I wouldn’t expect to see a ton at the first ripen but they were definitely there, especially as kids get older.

[Anonymous]

This is anecdotal but 9 is a strange year. I think you see fewer 9 year olds making the AAAA cuts for whatever reason that 11 year olds and 13 year olds. More lower age kids start to be able to compete as they get older. Maybe because 9 is the first foray into regular (not mini) meets.

Also, I think all of that 2% is based at end of season so kids are working up to that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

So does that mean AAAA is actually less than 2%? I assume the spring championships have the best couple dozen swimmers out of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) in the area. If AAAA is 2%, you should see plenty of them at a meet like that.

http://pvswim.org/2122meet/22-79rw.html

Here are the girls' results from JOs last spring, at a quick glance you see a few per event.

This kind of surprises me. I would think you'd see the entire final heat of kids with AAAA times if AAAA is actually the top 2%. Instead it's at most 3 per event and many events have none.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is anecdotal but 9 is a strange year. I think you see fewer 9 year olds making the AAAA cuts for whatever reason that 11 year olds and 13 year olds. More lower age kids start to be able to compete as they get older. Maybe because 9 is the first foray into regular (not mini) meets.

Also, I think all of that 2% is based at end of season so kids are working up to that.

The heats are 9 and 10 though. I get that almost no 9 year old is going to get a AAAA time. But I thought more 10 year olds would. I think I'm second-guessing the claim that AAAA is top 2%. It seems a lot more elite than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is mostly because it is early in the season. That's where they are in training. But it's also across the whole country, AAAA are quite hard to achieve. You won't see a lot, even at spring championship meets.

So does that mean AAAA is actually less than 2%? I assume the spring championships have the best couple dozen swimmers out of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) in the area. If AAAA is 2%, you should see plenty of them at a meet like that.

http://pvswim.org/2122meet/22-79rw.html

Here are the girls' results from JOs last spring, at a quick glance you see a few per event.

This kind of surprises me. I would think you'd see the entire final heat of kids with AAAA times if AAAA is actually the top 2%. Instead it's at most 3 per event and many events have none.

There can be quite a spread of times in those top kids though, especially in the youngest age group. 27.2 and 29 is a big gap in 50 free. And then a relatively similar gap of 4s in 100 free.

[Anonymous]

https://swimswam.com/usa-swimming-releases-age-group-motivational-times-for-2021-2024/

This is helpful in understanding a little more, also, follow the link in the middle "to see how they are determined".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://swimswam.com/usa-swimming-releases-age-group-motivational-times-for-2021-2024/

This is helpful in understanding a little more, also, follow the link in the middle "to see how they are determined".

Very interesting. So from this I'm getting that the whole AAAA is top 2% is not true at all. Instead it is based on the historically best 16th seed time for that age group, and then they do adjustments based on pre-determined "factors" from that. Reading between the lines, because there is a much wider distribution of times in the 10&U age group than in older age groups, you can get some crazy fast AAAA times.

[Anonymous]

Also. open meets have no time standards are typically the slower swimmers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also. open meets have no time standards are typically the slower swimmers.

Where are the fast swimmer swimming this time with f year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also. open meets have no time standards are typically the slower swimmers.

The top kids in the area showed up for this Open, at least in the 9/10 girls.