Agreed. At a mid level pool that most definitely doesn’t do this. We focus on the love for the sport part of that NVSL quote, not the competitive part. |
Well, count me as being in the camp of those that love to compete. Competition is fun. Trying to win is fun. It’s not fun to lose all the time. |
If you belong to a higher division pool, they are more focused on winning and it should be expected that they would swim younger kids up if they can get more points that way. We don’t do that on our team, but we also don’t strive to be a highly competitive swim team. I think both approaches are fine. |
It happened in Division 10 last week. See girls 13-14 medley relay results and compare against individual event results: https://www.mynvsl.com/results/26840?back=dt And, btw, that team would not have won the 13-14 medley relay without help from a superstar 11 year old. That equates to a 10 point swing in the overall meet results. In some cases, that can be the difference between winning and losing a meet. |
Um- it’s our neighborhood pool. Chill. We didn’t pool shop |
If I am reading the rules correctly, that wouldn’t be considered a swim up bc that is a “mixed age” relay rather than a 13/14 designated relay. A “swim up” is when a kid swims a different age group (so an 11 year old swimming a 13/14 free, for example.). |
She swam in the 12&u slot for mixed age relay and in one of the 4 slots for the 14&u medley relay. For dual meets, 11-12 and 13-14 are misnomers. The rules allow any swimmer less than or equal to the max age of the group, and of the same gender, to swim in those events. |
two different events
Girls Free 200M Relay Mixed Age - OK for even an 8 y/o to swim this, although it will/should be the fastest competitors no matter the age Girls Medley 100M Relay 13-14 - 13/14, others have to swim up, no 15-18s. Although the swimmer in question seemed to have finaled in 50FR even faster than the entire 13-14 and 15-18 cohort (from both teams) and had a 15s lead over her 13-14 team mates in 50FL And the entire relay was decided by .6, so definitely a strategic decision there. |
Smart use of a swimmer by whoever seeded that meet. |
You cannot swim up for mixed age. It is the rule. She swam up in the 13-14 medley relay instead of the 11-12 relay. |
Not necessarily — if not for a DQ (slightly early takeoff), they would have lost the 11-12 relay by ~1.5 seconds. I know this because I was at the meet. Based on times, they would have been expected to win the 11-12 relay with the swimmer who swam up (and, as occurred save for the DQ, would have been expected to lose the 11-12 relay without that swimmer). So it was really an even trade — better chance at 13-14 in exchange for worse chance at 11-12. |
They used the same strategy the previous week too, and won an even closer matchup in the 13-14 relay while losing the 11-12 relay by 14 seconds. |
That seems like a sound strategic choice. If the 11-12s lost their relay by 14 seconds, they were going to lose the relay even with that swimmer, so might as well use that swimmer in a relay where they could help the team win and get the 1st place points. |
We aren’t in NVSL but curiosity got the better of me so I checked out the link. My DD is an 11-12 club swimmer so I know who that swimmer is and she is phenomenal, so I get why they are strategically deploying her! |
They still lost. Question is... for division classification next year, does her time count for 11-12 or 13-14 group? |