Heat Sheets 101
What is a Heat Sheet? What Does it say?
The Heat Sheet shows all the swimmers participating in the meet and what events they will swim, as well as the heat and lane. The announcer will state the event and heat before each race. There is also an electronic board with this information.
Changes to the Heat Sheet will be made the morning of the meet based on swimmers who don't arrive on time or do not attend. This is why checking in on time is so important. At times, races may be "combined" to speed up the meet. For example, if we have 3 boys swimming freestyle in the 15-17 age group and 3 girls -- the meet coordinators can combine them into one heat to save time. The announcer will say if heats are combined. Please pay attention when it gets close to the time your swimmer's event is.
What is an event?
There are 87 events in each meet. Event 1 starts the meet and is the 6&U 100 freestyle relay. Event 87 ends the meet, and is the 15-17 Boys 200 freestyle relay.
What is a heat?
In each of the 87 events, there are
heats. Each heat has 6-8 swimmers - depending on the size of the pool. For example, if there are 24 swimmers entered in the 25 fly, and the pool has 8 lanes, then there would 3 heats of 8 swimmers each.
What is a lane number?
This will tell you which lane your swimmer is scheduled to be in.
What is a seed time?
When 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*. The home team is assigned to 4 lanes and the visiting team is assigned to 4 lanes*. That creates a mix of both teams.
*
There are exceptions to these rules.
Where can I learn how to read the heat sheet?
See below to learn more about all the pieces of a heat sheet.
