With many pools across the country closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and swim meets impossible to host, Life Time, a national chain of athletic resorts and health clubs, recently put together a virtual national meet that ran for 10 days in August.
More than 1,700 swimmers took part at 64 different Life Time clubs throughout 27 states. Athletes had the freedom to race on whichever day they choose between Aug. 12–22 and more than 6,500 results were published in what was likely the largest official virtual swim meet in the U.S.
Clubs were split up into three tiers based on size and in each tier there were first, second and third-place winners in each age group categories, beginning at age 8.
Photo Courtesy: Life Time
For COVID-19 safety, the meet used Swimmingly Equipment to run the meet and keep stats, which eliminated the need for multiple volunteers.
“We are hearing from our coaches that participants are loving it. They appreciate that Life Time has given them the opportunity to still compete without the added pressure of having lots of people around, which can be uncomfortable for people right now. A parent told me, ‘We all know this has been a difficult time for everyone and allowing kids to compete like this was awesome,’” Jen Rezac, Director of Swim Programming at Life Time, told Swimming World.
It was not an easy undertaking and took help on a lot of fronts, Rezac said.
“Our partners at Swimmingly played a large part in setting up this virtual meet. We’ve been using their timing software for our summer recreational meets, so we were already set up to help make this happen when COVID-19 hit,” she said. “Normally, coordinating so many locations and time zones would be a challenge, but we simply set the timeframe and swimmers had the option to select their preferred day and time to compete. From a national stand point, we selected the events and point value no differently than a regular swim meet.”
Photo Courtesy: Life Time
Photo Courtesy: Life Time