Community Message Regarding 2009 LCM NE Championship Time Standards Dear New England Swimming Community, We have heard from many coaches, parents and interested parties with questions about the changes in the New England Swimming Age Group cut times. We recognize that we owe it to our membership to explain how and why our cut times have changed so significantly. First, all New England Swimming members should be aware that the cut times are determined by the New England Swimming Age Group Chair and the New England Swimming Senior Chair. These Chairs are elected by the New England Swimming community at the Annual Meeting each year. Setting the cut times and making decisions about our New England Championship Meets are some of the many duties for which these chairs of New England Swimming are responsible. For several years, the New England Age Group Committee has discussed the need for New England Swimming to increase the expectations of our championship level athletes. Several of the committee members have favored the idea of bringing our New England Age Group cut times in line with other LSCs in the country by using the USA Swimming AA times. This allows for a natural progression from the Age Group through the Senior level of swimming within New England and USA Swimming. This summer, the New England Age Group Committee, with the support of the New England Swimming Board, has chosen to change the New England Age Group time standards to mostly AA times, making the time standards more difficult. In addition, the New England Age Group Committee has also discussed the idea of creating a better championship meet format for our 14 and under swimmers. At the recommendation of many parents and coaches within the New England Swimming community, the New England Age Group Committee has chosen to run a brand new championship meet format this summer. We will be running a 14 and Under Championship Meet. The New England Age Group Committee embraced this meet format as a way to highlight the successes of the top performing swimmers in each of the developmental age groups: 10 & Under, 11-12 and 13-14. The New England Swimming Board was particularly motivated to run this 14 & Under meet format this year due to a lack of available facilities for the Age Group and Open Championship Meets. Simply stated, for this summer, the Board had only two options for our championship meets: (1) the current championship meet format or (2) no championship meet for the Open swimmers. The Age Group Committee with the support of the New England Swimming Board determined that the time standards for the New England 14 & Under Championship Meet should be challenging in order to ensure a high quality championship experience. That means that we would like the meet to be a competitive one that allows the top athletes in the LSC to showcase their skills. It also means that we want the meet to offer these athletes a great meet environment in which the sessions are of reasonable length and athletes have time to rest in between prelims and finals. We would like the New England Swimming community to know that, had the cut times from previous years been used with this new 14 & Under meet format, the sessions would have lasted for at least six hours and our distance events would have had to be swum with two athletes per lane. This is clearly an unacceptable timeline for our championship meets. The current 14 & Under Championship Meet time standards should allow for reasonable session timelines and should ensure a great championship meet atmosphere. Of course, time standards may be increased or decreased at the start of each season to ensure high quality championship meets. For many years, New England has been privileged to have access to several indoor facilities for championships. These facilities, with 8 long course racing lanes, have been able to accommodate larger numbers of athletes at championships than facilities with 6 long course racing lanes. Facility restraints play a role in decisions about qualifying times for championships. We do look forward to EXCELLENT New England Championship Meets at the Jenny Thompson and Harvard pools this summer. New England swimming encourages all of our swimmers to work hard and do their best to achieve their personal goals! GO NEW ENGLAND SWIMMERS! Sincerely, Matt Craven |