Regional QTs 2009 (still waiting)

[taxi service]

Whilst waiting for the 2009 Regional times to come out, I noticed that East region have already published theirs.
I was surprised to see that the Surrey County QTs are tougher than the East Region QTs for 16yo boys 50 and 100 free. Haven't had time to check in depth.
Can't this be standardised so all swimmers across the country have the same QTs?

[Apostle]

Whilst waiting for the 2009 Regional times to come out, I noticed that East region have already published theirs.
I was surprised to see that the Surrey County QTs are tougher than the East Region QTs for 16yo boys 50 and 100 free. Haven't had time to check in depth.
Can't this be standardised so all swimmers across the country have the same QTs?

hi. We had the same problem in the east region last year with suffolk county times. Some were harder than the regional if memory serves. Especially the long distance free.

But with all things qt who knows how the things are really worked out. Maybe it's a group of volunteers who just stick a pin in a time in a dark room!

Seroiusly though, perhaps it has something to do with the size of swimming population in the south region. I mean suffolk/ norfolk probably has more pigs than people!

Therefore unless they relaxed the times we would have three man finals. Just a thought.

[chris_lamb]

But with all things qt who knows how the things are really worked out. Maybe it's a group of volunteers who just stick a pin in a time in a dark room!

It's quite simple. You take the national times as a base and then use a factor to work out your qualifying times. If memory serves region times use a factor of 75 and county 60 although I could be wrong on these exact values. The exact value will depend on pool time available, number of swimmers expected and other such things.

There's some software somewhere on the British Swimming website that will take a factor and work out the times.

[chris_lamb]

Can't this be standardised so all swimmers across the country have the same QTs?

This would never work. There is too much variance between different areas on the number of possible entrants, pool time available, how popular the competition is, etc. A standard set of times would result in some areas having uneconomical meets with hardly any swimmers and some areas having far too many swimmers.

[Leprechaun]

hi. We had the same problem in the east region last year with suffolk county times. Some were harder than the regional if memory serves. Especially the long distance free.

But with all things qt who knows how the things are really worked out. Maybe it's a group of volunteers who just stick a pin in a time in a dark room!

Seroiusly though, perhaps it has something to do with the size of swimming population in the south region. I mean suffolk/ norfolk probably has more pigs than people!

Therefore unless they relaxed the times we would have three man finals. Just a thought.

I cant comment on the Surrey situation as I'm not involved with group "in the dark room", but from my limited knowledge I think the swimming population may be part of the problem given the limited pool availabilty and cost I suppose. Anyway thats just an opinion!

In an ideal world, wouldnt there be an ongoing dialogue between County/Regional organisers and the clubs and coaches to make sure that the policy for setting QT's, which after all are probably fundamental to coaching and development of the swimmers, is known, communicated and understood?

As Chris Lamb says, a "one-size fits all" approach would founder for demographics and economics and anyway, havent we all moved on from centrally-driven governance since the Berlin Wall came down......?

[GettingFaster]

I'm not involved in setting QTs this season but when I was, we used the recommendations on the ASA (I like my capital letters) website, which recommends that Counties use 35-40% of whatever is in their own magic box of tricks. We used the little tool thingy (also on website) and went for one end or the other (can't remember which) except for the 50s, which would have resulted in several thousand swimmers on poolside at one time so they ended up being 37% or 38% - in any case still within the guidelines suggested by the ASA.

No idea how Suffolk does it, but perhaps they set such high qualifying times to keep the pigs from entering too - after all, who knows just how fast a pig can swim? ;)

PS: Chris_lamb, I don't agree with your "this'd never work" response. The whole point of the guidelines on the ASA website was indeed to get a little bit closer to standardising. If a county would end up with fewer swimmers, then book less pooltime. If it would end up with more, then book more pool time. Surreys takes place over 4 or 5 weekends because there are so many people in the county, I'm sure not all counties have that many sessions.

[swimstore]

Qualifying Time Setting For 2009 is now available so you should be able to get a idea of what they might be: http://www.sportsys.co.uk/

[chris_lamb]

Qualifying Times (http://www.southeastswimming.org/lib//file.php/comps/354/SER%20Qualifying%20times%202009.pdf) are now available.

[chris_lamb]

PS: Chris_lamb, I don't agree with your "this'd never work" response. The whole point of the guidelines on the ASA website was indeed to get a little bit closer to standardising. If a county would end up with fewer swimmers, then book less pooltime. If it would end up with more, then book more pool time. Surreys takes place over 4 or 5 weekends because there are so many people in the county, I'm sure not all counties have that many sessions.

I didn't see this before, but it's worth a response - the biggest problem I see with saying just get more pool time is who is going to run it? Hampshire have six full days of competition and I don't think we could fit any more swimming into those days. We are already struggling to find enough volunteers to run those days (across the board from officials, announcers, clerks of the course, spectator stewards, ...) If these people were spread over more days I don't think we'd have enough to run any of them!

[Apostle]

I'm not involved in setting QTs this season but when I was, we used the recommendations on the ASA (I like my capital letters) website, which recommends that Counties use 35-40% of whatever is in their own magic box of tricks. We used the little tool thingy (also on website) and went for one end or the other (can't remember which) except for the 50s, which would have resulted in several thousand swimmers on poolside at one time so they ended up being 37% or 38% - in any case still within the guidelines suggested by the ASA.

No idea how Suffolk does it, but perhaps they set such high qualifying times to keep the pigs from entering too - after all, who knows just how fast a pig can swim? ;)

PS: Chris_lamb, I don't agree with your "this'd never work" response. The whole point of the guidelines on the ASA website was indeed to get a little bit closer to standardising. If a county would end up with fewer swimmers, then book less pooltime. If it would end up with more, then book more pool time. Surreys takes place over 4 or 5 weekends because there are so many people in the county, I'm sure not all counties have that many sessions.

There is an up and coming pig, living just outside beccles who goes a nifty 32.56 for 50 breast!

[Linny]

I didn't see this before, but it's worth a response - the biggest problem I see with saying just get more pool time is who is going to run it? Hampshire have six full days of competition and I don't think we could fit any more swimming into those days. We are already struggling to find enough volunteers to run those days (across the board from officials, announcers, clerks of the course, spectator stewards, ...) If these people were spread over more days I don't think we'd have enough to run any of them!Enforced subscription? No, seriously, that's what we have. Your Club enters swimmers then you provide officials. No officials means your Club's entries are rejected. Inadequate officials declared on entry and your Club is fined £30. If one official from your declared quota misses one session you are fined £30. The £30 fines are accumulative so if one bloke misses 6 sessions that is £180. We're never short of officials (in fact one might argue (and many do) that we have too many because we almost always have a FINA full quota and spares for mentoring) and we don't pay them expenses either unless they fit the strict criteria (Chris you would fit the criteria because you don't have children swimming) so for 6 two day meets through the year the expenses is negligible, affiliation fees are low (there is no per capita charge to the district either) and swimming fees are kept down.

It isn't very popular but it works very well. I think it should be more popular really but the positive effects aren't appreciated. In Scotland a meet has to have a minimum number of officials or the times obtained at the meet can't be used for entering Nationals and District Championships so we have to all but guarantee that there are enough because insufficient officials renders a time of little or no value. Besides, why should just a few people do all the work?

[johnhy]

Would like to answer in more detail but a couple of comments. We are the biggest club in the County (certainly so far as competitively) but we only have 3 Judge 2s and one referee and probably 2 or 3 more qualified timekeepers. There are one or two others whose allegiance straddle more than one club who assist at Club Champs etc - so we would most likely be fined every session as at least one of the judges cannot officiate at most sessions in the County Champs due to work commitments.

We need more officials and trained more quickly - we have a judge 2 who did the starter theory over 18 months ago and cannot get a practicial for love or money and I finished the Judge 1 course (and all the practical parts) over a month ago but haven't a clue when I might be qualified - about to set off for Level 3 Meet where they are crying for Judges but unable to help as not qualified - goodness knows what will happen when everyone has to licensed to officiate.

[Bully]

goodness knows what will happen when everyone has to licensed to officiate.

The quality of officials will be much better, but there'll only be a 2 or 3 officials on poolside:)
The description of the dq's will be much better, and there won't be as many, as all the infringements wont be seen:)
The galas will be longer cause it will take the turns judge/timekeeper twice as long to walk round to tell the ref/starter/place judge of the infringement:)

[chris_lamb]

goodness knows what will happen when everyone has to licensed to officiate.

Either there will be sufficient officials to run the competition or the restriction won't be put in place. At least, I hope those making the decision are that sensible!

[GettingFaster]

Thanks for putting the times up, Chris. Very helpful for the sprogs to know what they're aiming at.

Bit of a shock for the 10-yr-olds' times, for girls at least, which are noticeably faster than last year's 10-yr-olds' times. Never mind, she'll just have to swim a bit faster! :D 12-yr-olds' times are a teensy bit slower than last year, which is more of a surprise as I was expecting them to be faster in the same proportion as the younger times.

[mike_lamb]

Don't get too carried away analysing the automatic qualifying times. In practice, we will certainly be accepting swimmers outside those times, depending on the entry.

The major value of the automatic times is guaranteeing acceptance for swimmers coming from a long distance, such as the Channel Islands.

After a lot of discussion, we decided that there are simply too many unknowns for us to set a single set of qualifying times.

Amount of pool time we can get 2days/3days for youth
Impact of economic downturn on entries


We cannot afford a competition with too few swimmers. If we lose money, that has to be added to registration fees next year. Too few swimmers means that those who do enter end up with their swims far too close together.

[GettingFaster]

D'uh! Didn't look past the first page so didn't spot any "consideration times".

And I wasn't having a go, honest. (Wouldn't dare, you're bigger'n me!)

[GettingFaster]

I might be having a blonde moment but I can't see the closing date on here anywhere. All I've seen under general conditions is that the closing date will be no more than 42 days before the first day of competition (i.e. 18th April) but that implies that i could be less than 42 days before, so a later date. Chris_lamb, any suggestions? We have a few meets scheduled around the time when I would expect the closing date, so would be interested to know if times from those meets would be accepted as entry times. Ta.

[chris_lamb]

I might be having a blonde moment but I can't see the closing date on here anywhere.

I'd go for the blonde moment :)


Closing Dates for Entries

Youth: midnight on 14th April
BAGCATs: midnight on 10th May
These have been set after examining the existing schedule of licensed open meets.


http://www.southeastswimming.org/calendar/showevent.php?id=354

[GettingFaster]

Cheers, Chris! :D