Coaches I feel we need to voice our opinions about a few issues at the Grand Prix meets.
I was recently at the Indy Grand Prix meet in March. As some of you know they have capped the meets at 700 swimmers. One of the Grand Prix meets closed in hours. The B flight was very small at Indy and could have been expanded by allowing more into the meet. Spring Juniors Nationals can run a quality meet with almost double the swimmers…
Capping the meet at 700 swimmers has had a ripple effect for the meet.
1. Coaches are signing swimmers up for the meet in advance and deciding whether to attend later.
2. There were over an hour of scratches each day and a lot of no shows in the meet. This affects the posted meet timelines as well as hurting swimmers who get closed out of the meet.
I feel we need to address space in warm ups especially at National Level meets Sectionals, Grand Prix, Juniors, etc.
Swimmers and Coaches work all year preparing and tapering for a great meet just to attend these meets and compromise proper warm up space.
To provide proper warm up space do we have schedule meets differently or have scheduled breaks during the meet. I am sure many of you have thoughts on how to handle space issues so please share your ideas.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.