Thursday, January 25, 2018

Championship Season is Upon Us!

CPSA Championships & Championship part of season explained:

We are getting to the part of the season where all that hard work the swimmers have been putting in since September is hopefully going to pay off, and our swimmers will REALLY shine! For those who are new, this should hopefully explain a lot with how this part of the season works. For the veterans, it's a good refresher. The bottom line is, these championship meets are hugely important. Practice is like studying, dual meets are like quizzes, and CPSA Championships and the qualifying meets are the big tests! So they really should be attending at least one of these championship meets. Qualifiers are on the front page of the website. A cheat sheet, in order they appear on the schedule: All meet info can be found on our meet schedule.

CPSA Championships - Serves as a "last chance" meet for those trying to qualify for the March meets, and THE big meet for those who do not qualify for the meets in March. Think of it like Divisionals in the summer. ALL swimmers are expected to attend just like with our dual meets. The club covers the entry fees so this is NOT an extra expense. Friday night is a distance session for 11 & up so it won't apply to everyone. Most attend both Saturday and Sunday, with some doing all 3. If you can't make it to a certain day, or all of it, please let us know via email by 2/1 or they WILL be entered. If a swimmer fails to show up and we weren't notified of an absence, that family will be responsible for paying the club the fees for all events missed, and the entire relay fee of any relays that had to be scratched as a result of the no-show. If you can attend all, you don't need to do anything.
For 11 and up swimmers on Sat/Sun, they swim in prelims in the morning, and the top 16 make it back to finals in the evening. Swimmers who make finals are expected to swim in finals unless it has been discussed with the coach. Legitimate reasons for this may include not ruining a taper for HS districts/JOs etc, illness, unavoidable conflicts.
9-10s and 8 & unders swim midday on Sat/Sun and are timed finals, as in they swim the event only once.
Also, there is a cool medal ceremony during this meet for the top 8 finishers during the 10 & under session and finals.

Junior Olympics - This is for swimmers age 14 and under and is qualify-only. The times are pretty tough... we currently have 7 qualified. This is pretty much the aspiration for a lot of the kids when setting goals. Partly because of the jackets and other apparel, ask any of them. But awesome meet for the kids and they are SUPER excited when they qualify.

Mini Champs - The big meet for 8 & under swimmers, and a neat experience as it's a multiple day meet (you don't have to attend all 3 days but many do 2 or 3 days). Lots of events are offered, including 25s/50s/100s, 200 free and IM... lots of fun!! No qualifying is necessary, the only requirement is that a swimmer has a time in an event, so no "no-time" entries.

Silver Champs - This qualify-only meet is for all ages, with a couple catches. We tend to have tons qualify for this meet, which requires times faster than the Silver Champ cut time but slower than JO cut times. 8 and unders CAN qualify if they achieve the 10 & under time standard. 15 & over don't have to make qualifying times so they can pretty much enter anything as long as they have a time and it's slower than the senior champs time.

Senior Champs - Sort of like JOs, but no age groups for qualifying times.. It's "open" so a 12 year old and a 17 year old have to beat the same time standard. It can be a lot tougher to make though when you consider it's mostly high school kids making it, with some middle schoolers.

Zones- This is a huge deal to make since it's a qualifier-type meet for the whole Eastern Zone of USA Swimming. The Eastern Zone includes not only Middle Atlantic, which were are a part of, but the areas from Virginia to Maine. Unlike in the past, such as in the summer, Winter Zones will not have a Middle Atlantic team, rather individual teams will enter their swimmers like any other meet.

**You DO need to still sign up your child via the meet sign up form for the qualifying-type meets to attend. Please talk with your child's coach as necessary about championship meets**

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