London swimming - youth programme

[born2swim]

Now that our counties are almost over (just 1 weekend to go), and the entry is iminent to the London swimming championships, I have printed out the programme and I am certainly not impressed.

I know that the region had difficulty in finding a venue and it still worries me greatly as the last 2 gala's that my son was due to swim at this pool were both cancelled the night before due to a problem with the pool - this is far to late to find alternatives and I hope that this does not happen this time!!! but squashing the events into 2 days really does not work well for us either.

On Saturday there are 8 events for boys and 8 for girls split over 2 sessions including in session 2 - 3 events and the 800m freestyle, but on the sunday there are 10 events for the boys split over 3 sessions, and my son has the qualifying time for all of them!! three backstroke events, 5 free style events and 1 I.M. with 8 out of these 10 events having finals, how are swimmers meant to recover certainly with only 1-2 heats between finals. swimmers will certainly have to carefully select their events and we even consider withdrawing from finals to allow extra recovery before the next session and no way can he do the 1500m which means one less chance to get national time (which can only be achieved L.C. this year!!!!)

Maybe infuture the winter champs could be held L.C. to help the swimmers as some counties still only hold their champs short course, so events like the 800/1500 are almost not worth doing there anymore!!!!

Other opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[Mac]

i think that London Region have probably reduced the length of the prgramme (ie 2 days instead of 3) in response to feeback from last years event. I don't know if you were there but it fekt like it really dragged on and that it could have been compressed into 2 days. I appreciate that it makes it more difficult for swimmers that have a large number of qualifying times but i think that it is likely to make it feel more like 'an event' than an endurance test for everyone involved.

Likewise, i'm sure that the winter champs were changed from long course to short course a couple of years back in response to requests from the coaches

[born2swim]

I most certainly did attend last year, and yes although in theory no one wants to sit at a pool for 3 days running, to allow the swimmers to perform at their best and hopefully be eligable for the training camp that is mentioned on london swimming website, they will want to swim in their best events. The programme appears that most of the fly and breast events are on the saturday and free and back on the sunday for the boys, they could have mixed them a bit so that if you are good at more than one stroke then you can compete at your best. My son is mainly a free and backstroke swimmer and has always wanted an IM national time, which means that he would want to compete in ten events on the Sunday, this is not possible, certainly if there are not many heats of each event, so he will have to pick and choose events so he can concentrate on his best 200 back, 50 back, 200 IM, 1500m , 200 free, 100 back and 50 free which is still 7 events!!! including 1500m. Maybe they could have had 3 sessions on the saturday so that the events could be spread over 6 sessions and not 5, still not ideal but better.

[doublexpresso]

The main problem seems to be the 1500 - but to be fair London Region have put on an additional event for 1500 and 800 at Aldershot - it allows an opportunity to get national times.
The squashing up of the events will be felt in the relays - many, I hear, will pull out of the relays to avoid additional congestion in their schedule.
:rainbow: