YMCA Sanctioned Championship Swim Meets

YMCA National Swimming and Diving Advisory Committee

Sanction Meet Request Form: Request Form

This document sets forth the criteria for having a swim meet recognized as a YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet for purposes of serving as a qualifying meet for entry into the YMCA National Short Course or Long Course Swimming Championship meets.

Purposes

A YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet is a celebration of the YMCA values and the accomplishments of the YMCA swimmers through competitive swimming, and is part of the larger effort to build strong communities.  It is the next logical progression, beyond local dual and invitational meets, by which the individual YMCA team integrates their smaller team community within an expanded YMCA community of teams in a broader geographic area, prior to participating in the National Championships.

A YMCA Championship Meet sanctioned under the criteria set forth below provides the vehicle for the individual swimmers to satisfy the requirement to participate in a YMCA Sanctioned, Closed Championship meet for purposes of entry into the YMCA National Championship Meets.  Sanctioning such a meet applies only to swimmers in the meet who are age 12 and over, as younger swimmers are not eligible to participate in the National Championship meets.  Nonetheless times achieved by younger swimmers in such a meet are eligible for Top 10 consideration and for achieving other qualifying time standards.

Eligibility

Eligibility of swimmers to participate in a YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet is set forth in the Rules That Govern YMCA Competitive Sports and the YMCA Competitive Swimming Black Book.  The Meet host may not waive these eligibility requirements.

All swimmers entered into the meet must have previously represented their YMCA in YMCA closed competition meets.

A YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet shall be a closed competition as that term is defined in the Rules That Govern YMCA Competitive Sports.

Scope of the Meet

A YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet must be either:

• the highest level end of season championship meet offered in that geographic area (i.e., group, cluster, district, etc.), or
• an end of season meet at a higher level (e.g., a state or field meet), or
• an in-season invitational meet that is open to YMCA teams from various geographic areas and of equal or greater competitive level than the above referenced district, cluster, state, field meets.

For local geographic area meets (group, cluster, district), the meet must be open to all YMCA teams in that local area and must attract a majority of the YMCA teams in the area

In geographic areas with a heavy concentration of YMCA teams, championship meets may be organized at Gold, Silver and Bronze levels, and such meets may qualify for sanctioning.

In such heavily concentrated areas, an end of season dual meet team championship or other local end of season championship meet would normally not be eligible to be sanctioned.

The meet must be scored by team.  Meets can be scored by women vs men and by age group, but there should also be a combined score for each team.

Events Offered

As this is a championship meet, which will qualify swimmers to swim at the National Championships, it is expected that at least 75% of the individual events swum at Nationals would be offered at such a YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet, including at least 60 % of the relays swum at Nationals.  The fact that some of the events offered are not swum due to lack of entrants will not automatically revoke the meet sanction.

Events offered must generally be scheduled as age-group events, although some events may be scheduled as open events (e.g., 400 IM, 1000 and 1650 Freestyle, etc.).

All events may be run as timed finals events, although where possible, a preliminaries and finals format is recommended, at least for the older swimmers who may qualify for Nationals.

Entry Standards

To qualify for a sanction a meet must have published entry standards, such as time standards, or the level of finish at a lower level meet (e.g., the top six finishers at each cluster meet move on to the district meet).  Meets without any qualifying entry standards normally would not be sanctioned as a YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meet.  (It is understood that in areas of less intense competition or less YMCA geographic density, meet viability may necessitate eligibility for all team members, i.e., no entry standards.)

Meet Conduct and Administration

YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meets must be run under USA Swimming Technical Rules.  It is recommended that they also follow the USA-S Administrative Regulations of Competition in Part Two of the Rulebook, modified to adapt to local conditions.

It is expected that YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meets will obtain Approved Meet status from the local USA-S LSC and enter the results into the USA-S SWIMS database.

YMCA Sanctioned Championship Meets must be officiated by YMCA certified officials.  USA-S certified officials may assist in the officiating and should be encouraged to do so.  However, the Meet Referee must be YMCA certified and two additional YMCA certified officials must be on deck at all times, one of whom must be the deck referee.  A copy of the Meet Referees YMCA Certified Officials card must be submitted with the sanction request.

March 18, 2009