Swimming meets aren't all fast and furious and represent a great chance for swimmers of all experience levels to experience the famous TASC camaraderie.
Club meets - These fun events are run by the club for the club, all TASC swimmers of any age are welcome to compete with their friends and the clock to try and get a new PB!
The interclub events require a swimmers to be aged 9 or over and to have a club compete membership to ensure your swimmer is insured to swim at competitions. The TASC force of swimmers and parents travel across the region giving our club members a chance to shine by setting official swim England recognised times.
Level 3 meets are the most frequent in the calendar, they are fun, often having team dance competitions, with medals on offer to the fastest in each age group. Please note, these meets can have upper qualifying times to ensure that the county and regional swimmers don't sweep all the medals.
Level 2 meets are the next step up, swimmers must post qualifying times fast enough to compete enticing fast swimmers from across the region to test their metal.
Level 1 meets represent the pinnacle of competitive swimming in England having fast qualifying times and being held in 50m pools. Counties, regionals and nationals are the most prevalent examples of these meets.
Masters meets are exclusively for adult swimmers and are not always constrained to the pool. Whilst there are fewer masters events on the calendar, the TASC masters contingent always does the club proud.
UPCOMING MEETS
ON THE DAY
Swimming meets are always fun affairs, but can initially be a little daunting, particularly for a swimmers first interclub meet.
In order to attend a meet, swimmers must first be entered for any races they wish to participate in on swim manager.
Some meets have upper and / or lower qualification times and its likely a new swimmer won't have any times at all, but not to worry, head coach Andy or competitions secretary Adrian will be able to help you out.
Before the meet the head coach will arrange a meeting time and place by email for all swimmers, this will allow time for meeting up, changing and getting warmed up before the races.
When packing you will need to ensure your swimmer has their swim suit, goggles and hat(s) and clothes to stay warm on pool side between races.
There is no need for training aids such as fins or pull buoys.
A swimmer should also have food and drink for the day, race day nutrition can be a big topic, but is also a personal one, so just pack food you know will be eaten.
Parents are not allowed pool side but the swimmers will be looked after by the head coach, parent volunteer team managers and of course their fellow swimmers.
Swimmers can go to visit their parents, but we do ask that they are returned in good time for their subsequent races.
TASC parents often sit together and can be identified by loud cheering for all of the clubs swimmers.
Races are most often "Heat Declared Winner" which means that all swimmers will swim the race once and their times will decide the medals. The heats are decided by entry time, which can result in a mix of ages on the starting blocks, but worry not, the medals are allocated fairly.
Meets are marshalled by volunteers who will enforce the rules so there is a chance that a swimmer can be disqualified.
Whilst disappointing for a swimmer it is not at all uncommon, we encourage swimmers to be proud of just getting to starting blocks on their first meet, we all know how much effort that has taken!
