SwimMAC Making History with Ultra Finals Long Course/Short Course Meet
One of the hottest topics in swimming is making non-championship meets more fun and interesting. College dual meets are limited in number and not the focus of the season, and club meets can have the same feel at times.
SwimMAC Carolina made the most of its November LC/SC invitational with a plethora of different ideas, including ultra finals.
The two-day meet had heats and finals but took place at two sites.
The morning prelims were in LCM, but the evening finals were SCY.
Finals were A-B-C-D with a twist. The 200 and under events swam 2-4-8-8 swimmers, respectively. The 400 and up events swam 4-8-8 (no D final).
A-finals were 1-on-1 (or best of four for the 400+ events) dubbed “ultra finals,” complete with parade walkouts, music, and a light show. B finals, called “super finals,” were no less exciting in a smaller field (top 4 for >200 events) and provided some of the fastest swims of the meet.
A professional master of ceremonies provided commentary and music throughout prelims and finals.
“It is critical to spice things up at swim meets, especially coming off the Olympic summer and keeping interest in the sport over the next four years,” SwimMAC coach Ben Keast said. “Teams who consider new ways to ignite the imagination of their athletes and fire up their membership by involving them in novel new competition experiences might stimulate all kinds of positive benefits over the short- and long-term. Therefore, we choose to help improve the odds of a great swimmer experience by engineering creative, out-of-the-box events, grounded in developing racing, which everyone can enjoy.”
Finalists submitted online surveys for their favorite warmup and walk-out music, as well as personal questions that colored their introductions by the M.C. when parading out for races.
Last season, the meet brought numerous NJT and National Team members, including Lilla Bognar (SC), Baylor Stanton (GA, signed to Cal), Kate Hurst (NJ, now Texas) and Leah Shackley (PA, now NC State).
This year, the meet had returnees like Stanton and a larger contingent from his club of Gwinnet Aquatics (GA), plus homegrown athletes like Elle Scott and Jordan Willis (SwimMAC), a traveling LSC team – Allegheny Mountain Swimming Zone (AM) – and out-of-state powerhouses like Scarlet Aquatics (NJ) and Phoenix Swimming (PHX).
