Relays
Medley Relay: Back, Breast, Fly, Free. This is the first event of the meet.
Free Relay: Free relays are all freestyle and the swimmer order is 2nd fastest, 4th fastest, 3rd fastest, 1st fastest (anchor). (2,4,3,1) This is the last event of the meet.
Spots on relay teams are earned and not guaranteed even if a swimmer was on a relay team the previous week. During the regular season meets, relays are only generated using a computer formula for the fastest combination of individual times. Swimmers may move around in order or change back and forth from an 'A' or 'B' relay.
Signing up for Relays
When you sign your child up for the meet, there is a drop-down menu after the individual events section for relay attendance. There are four options. If you do not want your child to be put in any relays or just particular relays, you can indicate that there. The options for relays are:
- Available for all relays
- Arriving late, not available for early relays (The early relay is the medley relay)
- Leaving early, not available for late relays (The late relay is the free relay)
- Not available for any relay
Relay Selection
Relays are automatically generated in Swimtopia using a mathematical formula. All available individual times are analyzed and the fastest combination for each event is determined. The four fastest combination of times available will be Relay A. The next four fastest will be Relay B (if there are enough swimmers.) It is possible for an age group to not have enough swimmers for a relay at all.
- If a swimmer is new to our team, or has not swum in several years, they will not have any times available and may not be chosen for a relay at first. Once the new swimmer gets times by swimming individual events in the meets, they will be considered for a relay.
- Divisionals relays are also auto-generated and each relay team is examined by the coaches. Only one relay team per event is allowed at Divisionals (no B relays.)
- If a relay qualifies for C&C based on their Divisionals time, the swimmers from the Divisionals relay are chosen to swim at C&C. However, if a swimmer is unable to attend C&C, another swimmer will be substituted by the coaches for C&C.
Swim Ups
If there are not enough swimmers from one age group to form a relay team, the coach may elect to swim up someone from the immediate preceding age group. This is the only reason swim ups can occur. You cannot swim down an age group. We are allowed two swim ups per relay team for regular meets. However, for Divisionals, only one swim up is allowed per relay team.
- Coaches will not swim up available swimmers from a preceding age group that would have otherwise been on the A Relay. The coach will also not swim up a swimmer to an older group if that would cause the younger age group to not have a team.
Points
Only the first place relay in a regular meet scores points (7). Any relay may win and score. Only one relay team is allowed to compete at Divisionals per event.
You can find more information about meets, relays, and scoring here.
