Marking Your Swimmer
You can use the Swimtopia app to determine which events your child will be swimming for the upcoming meet. From the home screen, select the name of your child, then select the upcoming meet. You may need to turn your phone sideways to read all of the information. Your screen should look similar to the picture below. Note the event number, heat, lane, and leg position, if the event is a relay.
Sometimes you may be given an Athlete check-in form that lists all swimmers by last name. The event number, heat, lane, and leg position is displayed below.
Swimmer Markup: Using the information above, mark either the swimmer's arm or leg as follows:
For younger swimmers, you can also write the strokes for the individual events as well as the relay events.
Stroke: If you'd like to note the stroke do so after the lane designation.
- FR = Freestyle
- BA = Back Stroke
- BR = Breast Stroke
- FLY = Butterfly
- IM = Individual Medley
- FRR = Free Relay (All swimmers swim freestyle)
- MR = Medley Relay (Each swimmer swims a different stroke: 1st = back,
2nd=breast, 3rd=fly, 4th=free)
*** Write on clean dry skin with no sunscreen.
Name: Please write your child's full name and age on their upper back
Dive Marking: For meets where diving is allowed, mark a “D” on the shoulder of those swimmers who are certified to dive. You be notified if a meet is held at a pool that allows diving.
Heat Sheets
The heat sheet, sometimes refer to as the Meet Program, is a printed listing of all events for a swim meet. If you are volunteering, you will probably need to use a heat sheet. We will print and provide these for our volunteer roles. It could be a combined heat sheet, listing both teams' entries into events, or it could list only our team entries.
Events are listed in order and each event is a race for a specific age group. Odd numbered events are girls and even numbered are boys. The home team swims in even lanes with the visiting team swimming in odd lanes. Often, events will be combined to speed up the meet depending on the number of swimmers in the events and the number of lanes available. In that case, boys and girls will be swimming at the same time, but each event will be scored separately. The lane assignments may be odd or even and not dependent on home or visiting team.
Below is an example of a medley relay event as seen on a heat sheet.
And below is an example of an individual event.
Seed time is the fastest time a swimmer, or a team of swimmers for relays, has swam an event prior to the submission of entries for the meet. For individuals, this is the time entered for the swimmer for the event and is a good goal to try to beat. It also factors into lane placement and heat number. Occasionally, a time will be listed as NT, which indicates there is no time on record for that swimmer.
The individual medley (IM) is swum in order of 1) butterfly, 2) backstroke, 3) breaststroke, 4) freestyle.
Medley relays are swum in the following order:
Swimmer 1: backstroke
Swimmer 2: breaststroke
Swimmer 3: butterfly
Swimmer 4: freestyle.
100-yard Relays: In 100-yard relays, swimmers 1 and 3 enter the water at one of the pool, and swimmers 2 and 4 at the opposite end. Each swimmer swims one length of the pool, or 25 yards.
200-yard Relays: In 200-yard relays, all swimmers start and end at the same end of the pool, and each swimmer swims two lengths, or 50 yards.
