THE DISQUALIFICATION

 

Yes that dreaded disqualification, a little yellow piece of paper that is signed by the officials and in most cases given to the coach explaining the swimming infraction by the swimmer.  That is the moment that it becomes official whether we like it or not.

This past weekend I had several swimmers maybe 4 or 5 who came back after races and either said they thought they were DQ or asked if they were.  This happens at every meet and the one thing I normally ask is, What makes you think that?   What I’m looking for from the swimmer is a rule infraction that they think they may have had in the race.  The majority of the time the swimmer states they saw a hand raise.  

First thought,  why are you looking at the official ?  This tells me that no matter what you say and think your entire focus is not on YOUR race.  You can say it is but just saying it is doesn’t make it so.  

The stroke and turn judge is watching 2 or more lanes during the race and they make a judgement call on what they see or think they see.  Disqualifications will happen and they happen to swimmers at all levels. As a swimmer the one thing that you can do to reduce them is to focus on the little things (no matter how little you think they are) during your practice and training sessions.  Be aggressive with your turns, pay special attention to good stroke counts, stop floating into your turns especially backstroke, and two hand turns and finishes in breast and fly.

Take the feedback from the coaches from this past weekend, write them down and let’s get back to the pool and really focus on them going into the swim and rock meet and our mid season December championship meets.