Hey Walden families,

I will be holding a parent meeting at 7:30 p.m. Friday prior to setting up the pool for Saturday, to discuss the end-of-season Medal Meets. These are optional meets that swimmers can choose to participate in to finish out their season, and swimmers must declare for these meets by 10 p.m. on Saturday, July 19. No declarations will be permitted after this time.

I will go over this information in more detail at the parent meeting but I wanted to give you the opportunity to discuss the options with your swimmers while we still have two meets left this season. Things to keep in mind when deciding which meet your swimmer will compete at:

1. Swimmers are only allowed to swim in one medal meet, and they are only allowed to swim the strokes at the meet they swam a qualifying time for. 

* For example, if your swimmer has qualifying times for the Silver Meet in the freestyle and butterfly and has qualifying times for the Bronze Meet in the IM and backstroke, they can either swim freestyle and butterfly at the Silver Meet or IM and backstroke at the Bronze Meet. 

2. Swimmers must compete in two regular season meets to be eligible for a Medal Meet. If they are eligible, they can swim a maximum of 3 individual events at the meet of their choice (as long as they have qualifying times). All swimmers automatically qualify for the Bronze Meet as long as they have registered a time. All 15-18 year old swimmers automatically qualify for the Silver Meet as long as they have a qualifying time as there are not 15-18 categories at the Bronze Meet.

3. If we have enough eligible swimmers to form relay teams, Coach Chas will select the teams based on times. If we do not have a relay team, it’s because we didn’t have the right mix of swimmers at a meet to field a legal team.

4. The Medal Meet schedule is as follows: 

* Bronze Meet is Wednesday, July 23 at South River Colony. 

* Silver Meet is Saturday, July 26 at Davidsonville

* Gold Meet is Sunday, July 27 at Hunt Meadow

You will declare for these meets just like you do our regular season meets, through our team’s Swimtopia website/app, but in addition to saying you are attending, for this meet you will select the strokes your swimmer wants to swim.

Please feel free to wait until after next Saturday’s meet against Truxtun Park to declare for your chosen Medal Meet. But because the turnaround time is tight, I wanted to get this information out now so you can start planning accordingly.

If you have any questions, please either attend Friday’s meeting or email [email protected].

Jim Higgins