Swordfish Parents,

Since we are now a few meets into the season, we thought it was time to talk about the dreaded disqualification (DQ). What is it? Why did my kid DQ? What’s the process when my kid DQs? And ... Will you tell me if my child DQd.

All of these are great questions. Swimming is a complicated sport, and swimmers have to do a lot of things right just to place in a race. If your swimmer has even one legal time, bravo! If they don’t, that is ok too. They'll get there.

DQ slips have a million checkboxes on them – Was there an error on the start? the swim? the turn? the finish? Check here. Did they use one hand to touch the wall? Forget to touch the wall? Delay initiating the turn? Check there. Did their arms go past the hipline? False start? Toes over the lip of the gutter? The list goes on and on. If your eyes are widening reading this, then you understand why we dread this topic.

During an A meet, if one of our swimmers DQs, the ref brings us the yellow DQ slip with the reason for the DQ after the event. We share the feedback with Coach Sarah during the meet and before the meet is even over, Coach Sarah begins to make a plan for the upcoming week - a plan based on the performance of the swimmers in the water during the meet. By the end of the meet she has a list of things the team will be working on based on DQs and “even better” opportunities the coaches observed.

The B meet process is a little different. During a B meet, all the DQ slips are sent directly to the data table where they are sorted and attached to the timecards by the table workers. After the meet we get a copy of the DQ slips and the coaches read through them and come up with a plan for the upcoming week based on the themes they see in the DQ slips.

So when your child hops in the water on Monday, and the coaches say – “we are going to spend the first 10 minutes practicing backstroke flip turns”- that isn’t a coincidence. That is the plan based on the things that hurt us most at our meets.

Will we review every DQ slip with every child? No. It’s doesn't always make sense to do that. But Coach Sarah will always tell your child if there is an opportunity for stroke technique development or if they ask a specific question about their race. And she will never tell them they didn’t DQ if they did. But the truth is, most of the things our swimmers DQ for, other swimmers DQ for too, and if we can fix it for everyone, we all win!

Check out this article about the top reasons swimmers DQ.

We love hearing about the things you want to learn more about it. Keep asking questions! 

And don't worry, we won't DQ you for asking too many.