Swimming levels

I am going to begin with explaining the levels. There many new people to swimming who read this and the explanation will be the main part of this post for them. I will continue on my opinion after that.

There are two levels of swimming. There is the Age-Group Level and the Senior Level.

Age Group is actually a type of competition that swimmers are divided up by Age-Groups. Sometimes the swimmer will compete with other Age-Groups, but awarded and placed by their Age-Group. This is typically done to help make swim meets not take so long.

Senior swimming is also a type of competition where the swimmers compete against everyone in a particular event with no regard to age. These meets normally have qualifying requirements, and is the higher level of competition.

Ok, so now to the rant. Why is this so confusing even within the sport? Because not even all the coaches can define where Age-Group ends and where Senior begins. It is confused by the group of swimmers that barely make senior meets and therefore still attend Age-Group Championship Meets. Many believe that you are an Age-Grouper until you are 19. Others think that you are a Senior swimmer once you make a specific Senior Meet. Some Swimmers and Parents think that you are a Senior Swimmer once they are in a specific practice group. Everyone comes up with their own definition. The problem comes when we try to create meets for these levels.

I wish we just saw it as three levels (names don't really matter, so we'll make them basic). The beginning level will be 1, the middle level will be 2, and the last level will be 3.

1 would be 14 and under. 2 would be 15 - 18, and 3 would be college and post grad. Local areas could then expand by making other levels based on ability as it applies to the area (all areas have different issues and demographics that require different programs).

Get rid of the in between we have now that confuses the transition of Age-Group and Senior swimming.