We had ours last night. It was probably worse for the adults standing around for hours than the kids. Many of the kids said the water was warm. Times seemed to be mostly slower across the board under these conditions.

I'm a team rep and making these calls is hard.

As a rule of thumb, if the temperature is below 60 degrees, we will cancel. I don't want to make kids miserable. The temperature was 62 degrees when we started, so it right at the cusp. The rain and wind didn't help things, but we've had a stretch of very warm weather so the water temperature wasn't too cold.

Our swimmers were definitely cold after warmup, because they were wet and many of them were getting ready to swim the first events and so they didn't get redressed. If the swimmer had extra dry towels and dry clothes to put on, they were okay. We skipped relays and ended early.

Cancelling a meet is a big decision. I hate to waste the number of man hours of work that goes into prepping for a meet. If you run concessions, food has already started getting cooked.

At the end of the meet, the swimmers were happy that the meet happened but glad to skip relays. Lots of kids scratched due to the cold and that was fine.

We swam but there were more scratches than normal and about mid way through, the team reps were discussing combining some of the heats/genders to speed things up. Not sure what they did since our kids were done and we left.

As far as I know - meets are only canceled for thunder. You can choose not to participate however.

I wish ours was canceled.

Anonymous wrote:Our pool just cancelled the meet and closed the pool.

wow! which one?

Our pool just cancelled the meet and closed the pool.

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids swam through the winter in outdoor pools during COVID. There are amazing photos of coaches dressed for skiing next to kids diving into water with snow on the pool deck and steam rising into the air.

My kids swam outdoor that winter until the pool's pipes froze.

The water is a lot warmer than the air temp at this point. They will be fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is pretty hardy and would be ok tonight. She would take a bathrobe and several towels.
For a kid that gets cold easily though and would be miserable, I would skip.

Agree. My daughter doesn’t care. She’d happily swim and get bundled up after. But man my son would be MISERABLE.

Lol same here- tonight is supposed to be my DS’ first meet ever and I’m seriously considering skipping. I don’t want this to turn him off swimming!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids swam through the winter in outdoor pools during mCOVID. There are amazing photos of coaches dressed for skiing next to kids diving into water with snow on the pool deck and steam rising into the air.

Where are these pics?
This was certainly not a regular thing. My club swimmer didn’t swim while pool was closed then did the mask unless on the water for a few months. They didn’t all just move to outdoor pools.

Overlee and Dominion Hills both let club teams use their pools during Covid

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids swam through the winter in outdoor pools during COVID. There are amazing photos of coaches dressed for skiing next to kids diving into water with snow on the pool deck and steam rising into the air.

My kids swam outside all winter during covid in a heated pool. Their summer swim pool isn't heated.

The water is usually colder at the beginning of the season, because it warms and cools slowly. I'd bring something warm to put on right away, and maybe some hot chocolate.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is pretty hardy and would be ok tonight. She would take a bathrobe and several towels.
For a kid that gets cold easily though and would be miserable, I would skip.

Agree. My daughter doesn’t care. She’d happily swim and get bundled up after. But man my son would be MISERABLE.

Our pool just cancelled.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids swam through the winter in outdoor pools during mCOVID. There are amazing photos of coaches dressed for skiing next to kids diving into water with snow on the pool deck and steam rising into the air.

Where are these pics?
This was certainly not a regular thing. My club swimmer didn’t swim while pool was closed then did the mask unless on the water for a few months. They didn’t all just move to outdoor pools.

There is one school in MD that had a swim team that practiced all year outdoors in a pool with heaters strong enough to do this. There was an article in the Post or something.