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**LSC (typing too quickly)
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The “best” birthday depends on what meet you’re focusing on. For JOs, yeah a birthday in January or February is not ideal. But for say summer swim and the summer long course meets, a spring birthday is not ideal. My DC has a May birthday and while that is fine for JOs, it is not great for summer swim/long course. |
Agree with this completely. Whatever you are focused on you want the birthday to be up against it. Generally it does make a difference. Also 10&U is usually the easiest cut times. It gets tougher for 11-12 and really difficult for 13 and over. |
Yes - true! I totally agree. My kids have January, August, December bdays - and there are pros and cons to all of their bdays for various sports and school things. But I am recognizing, ok for JOs though -- not great for my January bday kid. Oh well. LOL. Like I think he might swim those times while 10 but maybe not between now and March 2022. Oh well - he's obviously not a phenom. LOL. |
Here’s an example: 500 free, 13 yr old boy: A time: 5:31.39 JO cut: 5:13.69 AA time: 5:17.59 ^^A kid needs almost a AA time to qualify for JOs at this age. 10 year olds boy: JO cut: 6:59.99 A time: 6:37.39 AA time: 6:20.79 ^^A 10 year old boy can be more than 20 seconds from an A time and still make the JO cut. |
In your 13 year old example, kid needs the AA time to make Jos, right? Also, I think the meets are big to include more kids bc to final in most events, you likely need an AAA (if not AAAA) time, even in the younger years. |
Sometimes. Depends on the meet. Here’s the jo results from a few years ago and they note who had aa, aaa, and zones cuts. https://www.pvswim.org/1819meet/19-71rm.html |
Yep, my son has a late January bday and it’s awful for short course champs, unfortunately. However, our team does a fairly big deal December champs (not with QTs though), and long course is slightly better. The best “swim birthdays” are generally August/September. It stinks but generally only matters when they are young. |
Yes, I think this is a big issue in swimming and wish USAS would use cutoff dates like most sports - something like Jan 1 for SC champs and July 1 for long course champs, so that kids who are training and competing with their age group all season could actually participate in the season-ending meet. |
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I really find these swim threads very helpful.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge for all the newbies! |
As someone with a kid who as a birthday that puts them as one of the youngest in sports that go by birth year and one of the oldest by grade, I actually think this is a fair compromise. |
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DD went to a birthday party last year between divisionals and all stars. I can't imagine how rough it would be on a kid to make all stars and then lose the spot before the meet even occurs. |
At least in MCSL, you don’t age out of a group during the summer. The age you are on June 1st determines what age group you swim with. So if you turn 11 on June 15th you still spend the whole summer competing in the 9-10 age group. I’m the poster with the May birthday kid and she often joked about this, she was like if I had been born a few weeks later I could have just crushed 8 year olds all summer instead of fighting to make A meets against 10 year olds The competitive streak was an eye opener for us, but she benefited from competing against the better kids and she still had a great time.
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But that’s exactly what happens to kids in USA (year round) swimming. They work hard all season as a 10 year old to qualify for champs and then lose the spot if they have a birthday the week before the meet. That’s why a cutoff would be better. |