Updated MN Swimming Policies

Recently USA Swimming reaffirmed the importance of adherence to the 4-hour rule and the need to make our meets more attractive to families. Here's a part of Bruce Stratton's 2013 address to the USA Swimming House of Delegates.

The retention of our younger swimmers, especially those 12 and under is critical to the growth of our sport. We must make swimming as attractive to parents as soccer, baseball, and tennis or the parents will drive kids out of the sport. Our LSCs must recognize this need or we will continue to lose swimmers at an early age. As the recognized leaders of your LSCs, I challenge you to go back to your LSCs and clubs and to look for innovative and creative competition formats that will be more family friendly. Retaining our younger swimmers is a key component to growing our membership and to the future success of our sport. I am convinced that making meets fun for young swimmers and their parents will be a great help in this endeavor.

With this in mind MN Swimming updated three policies related to the length of a session and seeding distance events. These policies are designed to keep our meets shorter and more attractive.

4 Hour Rule
USA Swimming rules stipulate that non-championship sessions with 12&Under athletes must be planned so that those 12&Under athletes will be done within 4 hours after the start of the session. MN Swimming policy 244 outlines guidelines on how to calculate the length of a session.

5 Hour Rule
MN Swimming policy 245 allows the Meet Referee and host to introduce a positive check-in if a session is planned to exceed 5 hours. It's hoped that hosts will take advantage of this policy to significantly reduce the length of their meets.

Distance Seeded
MN Swimming policy 243A is the default for all meets unless the distance seeding is otherwise specified in the meet announcement.

• Within a session combine all events of the same stroke, distance, and gender. 
• The combined event is seeded fastest to slowest, alternating women’s heats with men’s heats. Unfilled heats of women and men may be combined. 
• The results will be separated back into the original events for awards and scoring. 

USA Swimming rules also allow the Meet Referee to consolidate events. The Meet Referee may combine heats of men and women when space allows. 

2014 Arena Grand Prix at Minneapolis

Last week the University of Minnesota once again hosted the Arena Grand Prix at Minneapolis. Minnesota officials were out in full force with 34 officials participating over the meet's six sessions.

In addition to seeing some exciting racing those officials also had numerous opportunities to refine their skills and participate in educational opportunities. Several officials took the opportunity to receive national certification evaluations. U.S. National Team Director Frank Busch spoke during one officials meeting about the goals of the Arena Grand Prix series and how USA Swimming was supporting top tier athletes entering and leaving the national program. Meet Referee Lucy Duncan spoke about USA Swimming's national certification program.

One of the most exciting racing was the Men's 50 Freestyle final. See if you can spot all the Minnesota officials in the video below. I counted eight.

Thanks to everyone. Great Job!