Run a Championship Meet

A Championship Meet is a meet that has more than one round.  For example, a typical Championship meet will have 2 rounds for most events - a Prelim round and a Final round.   Or, a Championship meet may have 3 rounds - Prelim, Semi, and Final.  Everyone swims in the Prelims and then the top 8, 16, 24 advance to the next round.  A Championship meet also may have Timed Final events (1 round).  For example, most of the long distance events (like the 1500 Meters or 1650 yards) are swum as 1 round events (Timed Finals).

In MM, setting up a Championship meet is very straightforward.  As you set up each event, declare the number of rounds that will be swum and how many heats you will be swimming in subsequent round(s).  For example, you may want to swim the 50 FREE as a Prelim event with 2 heats of finals - an A-Final and a B-Final.  There can be 1, 2, or even sometimes 3 heats of finals.  Generally these Heats are called:

         Fastest Heat        A-Final or Finals

         Next fastest        B-Final or Consolations

         Next fastest        C-Final or Bonus

MM defaults to the name "A-Final", "B-Final", and "C-Final", but you can change them to anything you want in the Language Preferences / Key Words section. For example, you could change the keyword B-Final to the word Consolations or Consolation Final.

If there are events with Multi-Age Group where several age groups are swimming together for preliminaries, but swim in separate finals based on their age group, use the Multi-Age Group check box in the Event Edit menu. Note that each age group can have a different number of heats for finals and this is setup in the 3rd column of the Multi-Age Group window. In this situation, the number of heats for finals in the lower right panel of the add/edit event window is ignored. Click here for examples to consider.

As you setup each event, you can specify that you want the heats for the last round run Slow to Fast or Fast to Slow.  If you have 3 heats in the last round of an event, you have the option to customize the order that these 3 heats are run.  For example, you might want the C-Final run first, then the A-Final, and the B-Final run last.  Click on the Custom check box in the Event Setup screen and MM will use the heat order that you specify in the text box next to the Custom radio button, such as CAB.

Once you set up each event and specify how many rounds there will be, MM will take care of advancing the top 6, 8, 12, 16, ... athletes to the next round when you seed that next round. However, the next round cannot be seeded until the prior round is completed and has a Done status.  Multi-round events involve 2 types of seeding.  Prelim and Semi rounds are "circle seeded".  That is for the 3 fastest heats, the athletes are assigned lanes by assigning the fastest entry time to the fastest heat and the next fastest to the next heat and so on so that the fastest entries are NOT swimming together in the same heat.  For the last round or "Finals", the fastest athletes are assigned lanes in the middle of the pool next to one another and then subsequent entries fan out to the sides - the slowest being assigned lanes 1 and the other outside lane.

When you are running a Championship meet, it is important to Set up Sessions so that you may group what events and what round for each event are being swum.  For example, Session 1 may be swum in the morning with Prelim events and then Session 2 for Finals are swum in the late afternoon or evening.  By setting up Sessions, you will be able to Time Line each group of events so that you will know approximately what time the prelims will finish.  It will also give you an opportunity to simplify the seeding and running of the meet.  For example, after Session 1 has been completed and you do any scratches for Finals, then go to the Seeding screen, click on Session 2, select all events, and then click on Seeding.  Then print the Meet Program for Session 2.  That way, you do not have to "remember" which events are being swum when.  They are already "set up" before the meet starts.

After the meet has been completed, you can print Meet results for a Session or all Sessions, any round or all rounds in Publication Order or Event Number Order. MM will take care of grouping each round's results together.