Parent Reps, Meet Managers and Coaches,

Here is the important info on Finals. Please be sure to carefully read through everything.  If I have any problems seeding the finals meet from the Advancers files, I will let everyone know and we will quickly figure out an alternative, but I'm not expecting it to be a problem. Let me know if you have any questions.

Elisa

1. I will be able to seed the finals meet from the Advancers files from each of the 4 prelim meets. This means that the coaches will NOT need to seed the meet each day with any of their swimmers that made the top 18. This is new from Swimtopia, thus the change from my previous email. So I will upload the top 18 (that is the top 16 plus the 2 alternates) from each event. After the 11-12 prelims finishes on Thursday (7/13) and after all 4 of the Advancers files from the 4 prelims meets are uploaded, I will send out an email letting everyone know that the initial heat sheet for the finals meet is posted.
2. At this point, I will need to know about any scratches from every team. You will need to email me the name of the swimmer, team and event(s) that the swimmer is scratched from so that I can move up any alternates (same for any relay scratches). This will also be the last chance for the coaches to change around any swimmers in the relays that made finals (see below). We do NOT want there to be any relay swimmer changes at the scratch meeting unless a swimmer is unexpectedly sick on the day of finals. We will close finals entries for changes at 6pm on Friday, July 14th (NO EXCEPTIONS!).
3. In order to make relay changes, I will need to have the swimmer’s info emailed to me and specify which relay (event number and A, B, C, etc. relay) is changing (include the swimmer order). If a swimmer that you are adding to the relay is not already in the top 18 in an event in finals, then I will need the exact matching info that Swimtopia has on that swimmer so that I can manually add them in the finals meet in Meet Maestro for the relay (to avoid duplicates in the roster when the results get uploaded). This is found in your team’s Swimtopia site by going to Manage Team > People > Click on the Athlete’s name > Click on Edit. I will need their First Name, Middle Name (usually just the initial), Last Name and Birthday, plus your team (see attached file). You can include a screenshot of this information or type it exactly as you see it. This is because I’m seeding the finals meet from the prelims Advancers files and only the swimmers in the Advancers files get pulled over (not the full roster for each team unfortunately). This will be a bit of work for the coaches, but less than having to enter all the entries for finals as I originally thought would be the case.
4. Once we are finished with those finals changes, I will again send out an email letting everyone know that the finals heat sheet is now ready. Please look over it to see if an alternate from your team has moved up due to a scratch from the top 16, or if a swimmer has been moved from the slower heat to the faster heat due to a scratch in the faster heat. This will be the finals heat sheet that we will be using and only scratches will be happening at the scratch meeting the morning of finals.
5. Also, we will only be swimming 2 heats of each event at finals (a slower heat and a faster championship heat), but the heat sheet will show a 3rd heat with up to 2 swimmers. That heat is showing the alternates only, and is not a heat that will be swimming. I don’t have a way to label them as the alternates, but know that they are the alternates. We need to have them in the system so that we can quickly make the changes in Meet Maestro if they wind up swimming. I will remind everyone of this again when I send out the email that the finals heat sheet is ready.
6. For the finalized heat sheet for finals, I will not be including the estimated time that each event will start since the extra heat for the alternates will mess up the times (there isn’t a way to have Meet Maestro to exclude those heats when it calculates the estimated start time). This also means that the estimated times in the app will not be correct at first either. Let your parents know that they must be paying attention to what is being heated. Our plan is to delete the extra heats for the alternates after the scratch meeting and then publish the heat sheets on the Swimtopia app at that point. Once those extra heats are gone, then the estimated times should be close to correct, but that will not happen until near the start time of the finals meet.