How to Read a Heat Sheet

What is a Heat Sheet?

The Heat Sheet is a program that shows all the participating swimmers and what events they will participate in as well as the heat number and lane number. The announcer will say the event and heat number and there is also an event sign with this information.

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NOTE: Changes to the Heat Sheet could be made the day of the meet based on swimmers who don't arrive on time or do not attend. We could also "combine" races to speed up the meet. For example, if we have 3 girls swimming Fly in the 15-17 age group and 3 boys -- we may combine them into one heat to save time.

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The announcer will say if heats are combined. Please pay attention when it gets close to the time of your swimmer's event. Also -- please be flexible as some kids change their mind the day of the race of what they 'feel' like swimming and our coaches work very hard to make sure they have swimmers in races they feel confident about.

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What does it say?

Event Number: # of event may vary meet to meet depending on the team we are swimming against. We swim the Individual Medley, Freestyle Relay, Backstroke, Freestyle, Medley Relay, Breaststroke and Butterfly.

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Heat Number: In each of the events, there are HEATS. Each heat may have 5-8 swimmers - depending on the size of the pool.

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Lane Number: This will tell you which lane your swimmer is scheduled to be in.

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Seed Time: Once a swimmer participates legally in an event, they will have a "seed time" in that event for the next meet. Swimmers are placed in heats and relays according to their seed times. It's the swimmer's fastest time prior to this meet (if they have a previous time).

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Finals Time: The time they swam at this meet

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Heat Winner: First child to touch the wall. Ribbons are distributed per heat so if an event has multiple heats, each swimmer will get a ribbon relative to the heat, not the overall event.