Hi everyone,

As mentioned earlier, our meet with Dresden this past Wednesday was run in a different format, and I’d really love to hear your feedback!

A little background: Last year, a proposal was presented to the Tri-County Aquatic League (TCAL) to modify the meet format to improve efficiency—especially for evening meets that can run past 9 PM, as well as Saturday meets where time constraints sometimes force teams to cut relays (as happened at our Pickerington meet this year).

In the traditional format, events are separated by both age group and gender (for example: 8 & under boys, 8 & under girls, 9–10 boys, 9–10 girls, etc.). The new format combines swimmers into two groups: 10 & under and 11 & over. Within each group, boys and girls swim together, and races are seeded by time. Awards, however, are still given by the original age and gender categories—so you’ll still see results for 8 & under boys, 8 & under girls, and so on.

Both the Dresden coach, Christi, and I strongly support this format. It’s commonly used in club swimming and is becoming more standard across the sport. We presented it to the TCAL board at the start of the season, but it was not approved at that time. We implemented it at this meet to gather data and feedback, with the goal of resubmitting the proposal for the 2027 season.

If you could take a few minutes to complete the survey and share your thoughts, we would greatly appreciate it. Your feedback will help strengthen the proposal and ensure that the voices of those most impacted are heard.

Post-Meet Survey: CW vs Dresden – Fill out form

Thank you!