Surrey's downgrade

[Pete]

Surrey Champs this year!
No finals apart from Senior and Junior 100's. No fun! No atmosphere! We need finals for each age group! There was time! Swimmers need to actually compete against their own age group to give themselves a sense ofgood performance! Swimmers need incentives; what better incentive than really proving yourself against your peers? Swimming heats directly with other age groups does not give the swimmer realisation of how he compares with his peers. Therefore keeping him/her interested.
Do other counties have age-group finals.
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Phil Tanner]

Berks and South Bucks did this last year, but has now gone back to age-group finals for all but 10yos in 100s, 50s and 200 IM and junior/senior championships decided on times within the age-group programme. Seems to be much more popular and we have had some really exciting finals from 11 years upwards.

[Mac]

Essex have heats and finals for each individual age group upto 16 year old (except for 50s where everyone swims the heats together but even then there are finals for each age group). I'm sure the swimmers would prefer to race against the people that they are actually 'competing' against. And to 'final' in a county championships is an achievment in itself which would not be available to most if only Senior/Junior finals are swum.

[BigFish]

I was really surprised to see the Yorkshire Junior/Senior event only had a single final combining all age groups. We had the ridiculous situation of having 14 yo girls swimming against Caroline Foot (more than twice as old) and expecting them to swim in the same final (if they made it of course)!

I really don't think this can be the way forward. We've already had a couple of girls seriously consider packing it all in, because, in their words "I'm never going to make a Yorkshire final now". Seeing your name in the top 8 for your age group doesn't feel the same as actually swimming in a final.

[Tara]

Hampshire only had open finals not even junior finals. All the ages are swam together from 14years and up (girls) and 15 years and up (boys). Perhaps even harsher for the boys as there were a number of senior men so swimmers winning their age group at 15 or 16 may have not been anywhere near making a final. Results for BAGCATS and junior were then taken from heats / finals. Perhaps limited because it was all held over 1 weekend and four sessions? ? Still limits opportunities for a second swim for too many swimmers.

[Bazza]

Yeah, we (Hants) always used to have finals for all events from 11-16. I much preferred this format. In the current, it gets forgotten how you are faring in your age groups, and only the people who hung around until the final session found out how they did. One swimmer left and missed her presentation simply because she didn't realise she had a category placing. The problem for me is that they change it every year, and information can sometimes be very unforthcoming. At least if they left it the same people would know where they stood from one year to the next, even if it's not the preferred format.:mad:

[Steve]

Hey think yourselves lucky, at least you have some finals - in the Cambridgeshire Counties, its single age group HDW, with no finals in any age group and no bagcats either (AFAIK - could be coming in this year :confused: ) - great for me I get to swim against a load of 13/14 year olds in the heats...

[Phil Tanner]

I think Bazza hits the nail on the head - it's that they keep changing things around above county level, and county associations wind up damned if they try and fit in with the prevailing slogans and damned if they don't. I imagine it would have been a brave association last year that said "stuff BAGCATS", but 12 months on the powers-that-be already seem to be in retreat from it.

[Bazza]

To be honest with you I've never really understood the principles behind BAGCATS, what it means or achieves. And I've been swimming long enough to have a pretty good understanding of most things! What hope for the children who've only been swimming a couple of years and their parents?:confused:

[Steve]

Originally posted by Steve Buckley
<snip> with no finals in any age group and no bagcats either <snip>

OK so they had BAGCATS this year in teh Cambs Counties, but wait for it, also had medals and pennants for individual races as well. I suppose it kept parents etc. happy, but not really in keping with the principle of the thing :rolleyes:

[Bazza]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point of Bagcats is to get swimmers competing in a larger range of events, instead of just 50's and the odd 100. This is fair enough, but the biggest grumble about the Hampshire's BAGCATS weekend just gone was the likes of 13 heats (8 lane pool = ~100 entries) in events like 200m Backstroke, with some of the swimmers taking about 4 minutes. To me the whole situation is infinitely more confusing than when I was a youngster. By encouraging anyone and everyone to compete in a whole load of events across the whole range of strokes and distances, mostly by saying if you don't then there's no acknowledgement of your existence, we just get swimmers who aren't really ready to compete in these events or aren't really good enough to compete in these events. When I was young, it was initially an achievement to get a county qualifying time, and I used to see them as being quite tough (OK seems stupid now!), yet these days they seem to accept anyone who's willing to have a go at all the events, and a swimmer who stumbles through this range of swims gets more recognition than one who maybe only does one or two races yet to the standard expected at county championships.:(

[Kate]

In our Counties we had 154 swimmers doing the 200m backstroke, with the slowest taking 6 minutes! The ages were 10 to Open and unless you studied all the birthdates listed then you couldn't tell who was racing who - my children are new in this County and had to wait until the results sheets were printed before they had any idea of how they did in their age-groups. This is not much fun for spectators to watch and not really fun for the kids either - it was much better when they swam heats and finals.

[Bazza]

Yeah, exactly. The event I was talking about was only for 10-14 year olds. The open event would have been on a different day. It just gets really boring, even when you have swimmers involved. As has been said what is wrong with heats and finals and maintaining a reasonable standard, instead of saying "We want everyone to do everything, regardless of whether they're any good at it or not."
One swimmer at our club attempted a 1500m at the age of 13 just because of the BAGCATS system. :( He also swore never to do it again.
Personally I don't think BAGCATS would have encouraged me to swim more events at that age. Either I would have done the same and got no reward therefore becoming frustrated and disheartened - maybe to the point of quitting, or I would have said "Well I'm not going to bother with the Counties anymore". I appreciate what it's trying to achieve, but don't believe it's actually really working.:confused:

[Phil Tanner]

The converse is that BAGCATS puts (maybe that should be past tense?) a huge premium on just being accepted for certain swims, rather than how well you do in it on the day. Take the following example:

Scrupulous parents with swimmer in age group doing only 200 IM, not 400, don't massage best time by a second to secure entry at districts, so swimmer scores zero IM points. Swimmer has three strong strokes. in heavy training and comfortable with long course and no question whatsoever that the entry time would be beaten by the time the form is filled in, but district requires it to be swum in competition and the when and where stated.

On the day, one-third of entrants fail to make the entry time, let alone whatever they entered on, suggesting some were entered on hoped-for times rather than as stipulated on times already achieved. BUT each of these swims secures hundreds of BAGCATS points.

Same number of points as the worst time would have pushed swimmer who didn't fake an entry time into the top dozen or so overall, with a one-day training camp as reward, rather than 20-somethingth.

Come nationals weeks later, swimmer with no IM swim at districts hugely outscores several who did (and who therefore would be seen supposedly as better all-rounders) in BAGCATS over fewer categories.

[crawler]

This reminds me of a very strong 12 year old girl at my club who gained a number of NQTs last year, but just failed to get one for the 200 IM (by 0.3secs).
Swam well at the Nationals but without a Medley swim could not feature for BAGCATS.
It made me think that it was a shame that there was no leeway for any swimmers having NQTs for all elements (sprint/form/etc) bar one, which would allow them to enter the other category of swim.

[Allets]

Ask yourself what are bagcats FOR. Are they part of the criteria for a club training programme (the CDC) for the development of swimmers who are encouraged to strengthen their weaker strokes and distances ,
or is it a tool for the NPD and his lackeys to use to select the elite? :confused: