Winchester Wave

 Here’s a brief overview of each of the four strokes and the rules in their races.

A quick note that 6 and under swimmers will not be disqualified for anything, and oftentimes the judges are more lenient on the younger swimmers as well.

FREESTYLE

As long as your swimmer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pool/pull on the lane line, freestyle is a pretty safe race! Start at the buzzer and finish at the wall and you’re all good. In every race no matter the stroke, swimmers must not touch the bottom/pull on the lane rope.

BACKSTROKE

Close to freestyle but a little trickier. During this race, swimmers must remain on their back at all times. This includes finishing, which must be done on your back. For older competitors doing 50s, there is an exception at the turn allowing them to take one stroke and one stroke only on their stomach in order to flip. Other than that, swimmers have to stay on their backs.

BUTTERFLY

Here is where things get a little tricky. Butterfly is a pretty challenging stroke physically and has more specific rules. Here, a swimmers arms must move simultaneously over the top of the water. Their legs need to stay together, kicking simultaneously as well. If their arms are moving at different times or their legs separate in a kind of “scissor kick”, they will be disqualified.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST RULES FOR BOTH BREASTROKE AND BUTTERFLY IS THE FINISH! Swimmers must must must touch the wall with two hands!!!!! If they touch with one hand, grab the top of the wall with one hand, or in any way do not touch with two hands, they will be disqualified. This rule is one of the biggest killers in the sport.

The two hand touch goes for both turns and finishes.

BREASTROKE

Aside from the two hand touch, which cannot be stressed enough, the other tricky part of breastroke is the kick. A little difficult to describe over email, however, a common trip-up is when swimmers attempt a more “scissor-kick” motion. Coaches will have more detailed help for this. 

Practice Expectations:

We don’t take attendance at practices- if you need to miss, that’s fine, and you don’t need to let the coaches know. If you will be missing for an extended period of time, do let the coaches know.

Meet expectations:

ABSENCES: If your child cannot attend a meet, you must let the coaches know (instructions here >>).  If you do not submit an absence, your child WILL be assigned to the meet. One missing swimmer from a relay will make the entire team scratch -- a devastating occurrence for enthusiastic swimmers, so please, communicate meet absences quickly.

Plan on arriving to ALL meets around 5:00.

Warm up for HOME meets begins @5:15

Warm up for AWAY meets begins @5:30

ALL meets begin at 6 pm

Before arriving for each meet, please use a sharpie to:

• write your swimmer(s) number on both of their shoulders
• Write their events on their arms in a grid format like this:

Each swimmer at meets is allowed to swim up to 3 individual events and up to 2 relays. Swimmers just developing their strokes may be put in just the freestyle and backstroke until they’re more confident with the harder strokes -breaststroke and butterfly.

Volunteers:

Volunteering is a requirement. We are absolutely reliant on volunteers. Please see the info on our volunteer page.