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News For
SWIM
PARENTS
Published
by The American Swimming Coaches Association
5101 NW
21 Ave., Suite 200
Fort
Lauderdale FL 33309
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What is Long
Course, What is Short Course?
“One of
our pools is 25 yards wide by 50 meters long. Why isn't the
pool 25 meters by 50 meters or 25 yards by 50
yards?”
For years the
"American Standard Short Course" pool has been a 25 yard
pool. Almost all high school pools and most college pools are
25 yards long and most high school and college meets are run as
short course meets. USA Swimming Club teams generally swim
short course meets from September through
March.
The
international standard is meters. The Olympics, Pan-American
Games, and World Championships are held in 50 meter pools. In
this country, most 50 meter pools are outdoors due to the cost of
building an indoor 50 meter pool. For that reason our long
course season is generally from March through August. As more
and more indoor 50 meter pools are being built and as the United
States focuses more on international swimming the distinction
between the "short course season" and the "long course season"
becomes less distinct and more meets are going to the long course
standard throughout the year -- with the exception of high school
and college swimming which will generally remain short course
yards.
At this time
(April) many teams are training short course but are preparing to
go to long course when the outdoor pool is ready. Some lucky
teams are located in a climate and have access to long course pools
all year around. And some lucky teams have indoor 50 meter
water all year around.
Eventually we
all will be at swim meets during the spring and summer that are
long course. This will cause some confusion about
times. The times will be slower because a 50 meter swim is
approximately 5 yards longer than a 50 yard swim. Another
factor are turns. There are less turns in long course
swimming and generally, turns are faster than swimming -- we can
push off the wall faster than we can swim. (Although for some
of our swimmers who have not yet mastered a turn, the turning
process is slower than swimming!)
Some people
attempt to "convert" a short course time to a long course time or
visa versa. The conversion factors are not precise due to
differences in turns, strokes, and individual's ability to swim the
extra distance at speed. Conversions can lead to unrealistic
expectations and disappointments, or to a false sense of
achievement. For those reasons we do not convert times.
We simply say that each swimmer has two sets of best times, one for
long course and one for short course.
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