How to choose events for summer dual meets？

[Anonymous]

Our summer neighborhood team coaches allow the swimmers to choose their own two events for the weekly summer dual meets. How does your child select their individual events for each meet? Do they choose events based on their competitiveness or their desire to improve their times? Is choosing freestyle and another stroke, which varies every time, for every meet a good choice?

[Anonymous]

Is this for A or B meets

[Anonymous]

For A meets, the coaches choose who swims what to maximize points so we can win the meet. For B meets, which are also dual meets held on Monday nights, the kids can choose. They can swim two events plus IM. The only caveat is that they may not swim any events in which they placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the previous A meet. My kids will occasionally have no choice but to swim the events they did not place in (we are in a low division so pretty much everyone gets to swim in A meets). This week, that's true for two of them. The other two just picked the strokes for which they are most interested in dropping time.

[Anonymous]

My kids both hate breaststroke so I sign them up for free back and fly, and when they're old enough, IM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For A meets, the coaches choose who swims what to maximize points so we can win the meet. For B meets, which are also dual meets held on Monday nights, the kids can choose. They can swim two events plus IM. The only caveat is that they may not swim any events in which they placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the previous A meet. My kids will occasionally have no choice but to swim the events they did not place in (we are in a low division so pretty much everyone gets to swim in A meets). This week, that's true for two of them. The other two just picked the strokes for which they are most interested in dropping time.

Our developmental league rules are slightly different from this. Our kids can swim two strokes total, including (not and) IM (if it is offered…it is not at every B meet). No one can swim the stroke(s) they swam at the A meet regardless of place. If you placed first, second or third at the A meet your B meet swims are unofficial and do not count for place (the times do count for the ladder).

[Anonymous]

One of my kids uses the B meets to try to move up the ladder to make A meets or better lanes for A meets. So she will strategically look at which strokes she thinks she can drop time to move up relative to others on the team.

The other two just pick the two events they like the best.

Both systems are fine with me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my kids uses the B meets to try to move up the ladder to make A meets or better lanes for A meets. So she will strategically look at which strokes she thinks she can drop time to move up relative to others on the team.

The other two just pick the two events they like the best.

Both systems are fine with me

Yep. I generally let my kids pick their preferred events. Though I do on occasion attempt to guide them toward the strategy of moving up the ladder -- especially if they haven't swum a event in a while. Lets them have fun but still pushes them to develop their less preferred strokes.

[Anonymous]

I let my kids pick. Some things they consider:
Potential to qualify for an A meet
Wanting to see if they dropped time (our team gives an award to kids that drop every week in same stroke, so sometimes that factors in)
What they enjoy swimming
Order of events (sometimes we’ll chose not to do fly if we don’t want to be stuck at the meet all night)

[Anonymous]

If possible, I think it’s ideal to have a legal time in all strokes.

I have 3 kids. The youngest can only swim free and back legally so that’s all she does in B meets. Eventually when she gets closer to legal in breast and fly - I would like her to try to get legal times.

The middle swims A meets on Saturdays and in nvsl you can only do in B meets what you don’t swim on Sat so he usually does those two strokes and he might try IM appx 2x.

The oldest is on the cusp for A meets when he’s at the bottom of the age group so he may focus on his two best strokes at B meets to try to get into an A meet.

[Anonymous]

When my kid started, he chose the two strokes he enjoyed and felt most confident in. Developmental meets are all about building experience and confidence and having fun.

Once he started qualifying for A meets, but still DQ'd every now and then or didn't usually place, he'd sign up for his strongest strokes for B meets for the race practice. Not surprisingly, those were the same 2 strokes he preferred and felt most confident in, so he was really swimming the same 2 strokes as before.

Then when he started placing in A meets in those 2 strokes, he couldn't sign up for them in B meets. So then he started signing up for the other 2 strokes in B meets in order to improve on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If possible, I think it’s ideal to have a legal time in all strokes.

I have 3 kids. The youngest can only swim free and back legally so that’s all she does in B meets. Eventually when she gets closer to legal in breast and fly - I would like her to try to get legal times.

The middle swims A meets on Saturdays and in nvsl you can only do in B meets what you don’t swim on Sat so he usually does those two strokes and he might try IM appx 2x.

The oldest is on the cusp for A meets when he’s at the bottom of the age group so he may focus on his two best strokes at B meets to try to get into an A meet.

That isn't an NVSL rule, that is just a rule at some pools.

[Anonymous]

We are in a league with just 1 meet a week, so no A/B set up, and the coaches select all the events. For the kids that are still learning, they don’t just get thrown into the max number of events, the kids have to be legal and able to finish the race. For the better/club swimmers, their events are selected based on where the team needs their points. When we swim a weaker team, some of the other kids get to try the IM, Fly, and Breast, but against a strong team the club kids will always be doing IM, Fly and Breast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If possible, I think it’s ideal to have a legal time in all strokes.

I have 3 kids. The youngest can only swim free and back legally so that’s all she does in B meets. Eventually when she gets closer to legal in breast and fly - I would like her to try to get legal times.

The middle swims A meets on Saturdays and in nvsl you can only do in B meets what you don’t swim on Sat so he usually does those two strokes and he might try IM appx 2x.

The oldest is on the cusp for A meets when he’s at the bottom of the age group so he may focus on his two best strokes at B meets to try to get into an A meet.

That isn't an NVSL rule, that is just a rule at some pools.

Oh! I didn’t realize that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If possible, I think it’s ideal to have a legal time in all strokes.

I have 3 kids. The youngest can only swim free and back legally so that’s all she does in B meets. Eventually when she gets closer to legal in breast and fly - I would like her to try to get legal times.

The middle swims A meets on Saturdays and in nvsl you can only do in B meets what you don’t swim on Sat so he usually does those two strokes and he might try IM appx 2x.

The oldest is on the cusp for A meets when he’s at the bottom of the age group so he may focus on his two best strokes at B meets to try to get into an A meet.

That isn't an NVSL rule, that is just a rule at some pools.

Oh! I didn’t realize that.

Yep. B meets aren’t NVSL meets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If possible, I think it’s ideal to have a legal time in all strokes.

I have 3 kids. The youngest can only swim free and back legally so that’s all she does in B meets. Eventually when she gets closer to legal in breast and fly - I would like her to try to get legal times.

The middle swims A meets on Saturdays and in nvsl you can only do in B meets what you don’t swim on Sat so he usually does those two strokes and he might try IM appx 2x.

The oldest is on the cusp for A meets when he’s at the bottom of the age group so he may focus on his two best strokes at B meets to try to get into an A meet.

That isn't an NVSL rule, that is just a rule at some pools.

This is definitely something to consider for B meets if a child is on the cusp of making an A meet time or want to make relay carnival.

Our pool also has the if you places on saturday you can't swim those events on Monday- harder to enforce with younger kids who many only be legal in a few strokes though, but we do like to encourage kids to break out of their comfort zone.