Guidelines for Entering Meets
Revised 2/6/07
Competitive Meets
Meet cards are due
in the “Meet Entries” file at Arbolitos by Tuesday night (10 or 11
days before meet start date). We process the entries and mail them in
on Wednesday night. If you have a late entry, contact the meet host,
and be prepared to pay double. A few meet hosts will allow you to mail
your meet card directly to them, but please do this only as a last
resort, and let Di or Toni know you’ve mailed your entry. We must have
an accurate head count before the meet so we know how many officials
to send. (If we are short on officials we get fined $75 per session).
On the meet card we
need your swimmer’s name, birth date, the name and date of the meet,
your name and phone number (if we have questions), and the event
numbers requested. The event numbers should be placed into the correct
boxes based on the stroke and the distance. We do not usually
need your swimmer’s times, as those are stored in the computer.
Note: If you are mailing your card directly to the meet host, you
need to fill out the card completely, including times, which you can
look up on
www.sports-tek.com/tmonline.
Novice Meets
Novice meets do not
require you to sign up ahead of time. You simply show up at the meet,
check in, and pay $5. Novice meets (and competitive meets) require
registration with USA Swimming. First time applicants must present an
original birth certificate or notarized copy as part of the
registration process.
Maximum Number of Events
The maximum number
of events you can swim at a meet is 5 per day, unless it says
otherwise on the meet sheet. If nothing is specified, you can assume
5. For prelims/finals types of meets (like JOs), the maximum is 3 per
day. You can ENTER as many events as you want if you are willing to
pay for all of them. However, you will be required to “scratch down”
to the proper number of events at check-in, and there are no refunds
for events you scratch. Most meets have time standards that might
limit the number of events you swim. For example, at a C meet you
cannot swim any event that you already have an official B time in. At
an A/B meet, you need to have B times to enter those events. There are
certain meets where we relax the rules a bit; our own P.S.-hosted
meets are an example. Your coach will advise you as to which meets you
can enter.
Time Verification Meets
Most
championship meets like Junior Olympics (JOs) or out-of-town
invitationals require time verification. You might be asked to provide
the date, name and/or location of the swim meet where you earned an
official time. Also, the times need to have been achieved during a
certain time period (this varies) so please don’t use a time that is
too old. You can only enter events you qualify for, unless specified
on the meet sheet. If you DQ at the meet or don’t attain the minimum
qualifying time, and cannot prove your entered time, you might have to
pay a fine or forfeit events. (The fine at our JOs is $100 per
event.)
Away Meets
Swim meets in other
areas (not San Diego-Imperial) usually require you to fill out
their meet entry card which will look different than our cards.
Sometimes you will mail your own card to the swim meet host for these
meets, but more and more we are required to put them on disk. So
please read the newsletter for instructions, and ask if you’re not
sure! For away meets where we send an electronic entry, we must pay
with one team check, so your check to cover meet fees would be payable
to “Pacific Swim.”
Website for Official Times
We keep track of
your swimmer’s official times for all sanctioned meets using an online
database that you can easily access. To check times, go to
www.sports-tek.com/tmonline and select your team (Pacific Swim
Team-CA). You can also look up times on the USA Swimming website:
www.usaswimming.org. Novice results will not be on either of these
websites, but we do keep a database for novice results, and you may
request a printout of your swimmer’s times.
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