Age Up Athletes

Discussion of Athlete's Age Calculation

You can think of an athlete as really having two kinds of "ages".

If you are using TM to manage an age group team, you know that there are many ways to determine the particular age group that a swimmer is eligible to swim.  For example, many Summer or Recreational Leagues choose a date, usually something like June 1, and say that the age of the swimmer on that date will determine what age group he or she swims in for the entire season.   YMCA clubs use December 1 of the calendar year to determine the athlete's age. USA Swimming and other swim organizations use the first day of the meet to determine the swimmer's age for that one meet.  In this case, a swimmer may swim in the 9-10 age group for one meet, and then the very next weekend have to swim in the 11-12 age group.

Meet Age Eligibility

When you originally set up your Database, you either took the default or specified how a swimmer's age eligibility for a meet would be calculated. You could choose the

•Meet Start Date

•Meet End Date

•Specific Age up Date

If you ever wish to change that specification, click on Set-up from the Main Menu Bar, then Preferences, then System Preferences and make the change.  Whenever you Add a new Meet, TM will set up the age-up-date for that ONE MEET based on this age up preference.  The age-up-date for that meet will be compared with each swimmer's birth date to determine his or her age for that meet.  For example, the swimmer could actually be 11 years old but be swimming in the 9-10 age group because his or her birthday is after the age-up-date of the meet.

Athlete's Age

The athlete's actual physical age may have nothing to do with his or her age group eligibility for a meet.  To update your swimmer's ages quickly without editing each athlete and changing their age, click on Set-up then Age-up Athletes, and TM will ask for confirmation and go through each Athlete in your Database and calculate his or her age based on their birth date and the System Age-up-Date that you have specified. The System Age-Up-Date can be viewed or changed by clicking on Set-up then Preferences then System Preferences.

You can age-up swimmers on just one particular team by clicking on Team from the Main Menu Bar then highlight the team you wish to age up, click on Maintenance, then Age-up.  After confirmation, TM will look at each athlete on that time and age him or her using their birth date and System Age-up-Date.

In System Preferences, you can chose to automatically age up your swimmers to "Today's Date" each time TM is started.