Early Exit for Sprint Lanes

SCENARIO

During warm up for a long course meet, lanes 1 and 2 have been opened for dive starts as per Swim Canada procedures. Many swimmers sprint to the 15m (or even short of that), stop and then cross lane1 to exit the pool at the side. This leads quickly to congestion at the 15m with swimmers crossing lanes and trying to climb out of the pool while other swimmers were approaching the area still underwater from the dive or in full sprint mode on the surface.

QUESTION

How can this be best managed to minimize congestion and to allow swimmers to safely exit the pool?

SOLUTION/RECOMMENDATION

As per the General Warm-up of the SC Competition Warm-up  and Safety Procedures,

Meet Management for all sanctioned Canadian swimming competitions must ensure the following safety procedures are applied. It is incumbent on coaches, swimmers, and officials to work together to comply with these procedures during all scheduled warm-up periods. Coaches are requested to encourage swimmers to cooperate with Safety Marshals.

Depending on the level of competition, Safety Marshals have a role to help work with coaches and swimmers to ensure a safe warm-up environment. This may include educating a younger swimmer on the procedures or communicating a concern to a coach.

Different levels of meets require different considerations for warm ups. The purpose of the sprint lane is to activate and rehearse the start which generally takes swimmers to the 15m. Swimmers should continue the full length of the lane or move into a general warm up lane to return to the start instead of crossing into a parallel pace/para/sprint lane.

This requirement can be clearly stated in the technical bulletin so that swimmers and coaches know the expectations and will allow the safety marshals to enforce these requirements as stated.

A BEST PRACTICE would be to have anything specific to the warm-up (such as no side exit) outlined in the technical bulletin as per points 3 and 4 in the General Warm-up of the SC Competition Warm-up  and Safety Procedures:

• Meet Management may designate the use of sprint or pace lanes during the scheduled warmup time. Any such lane usage must be communicated through a pre-competition handout or announcement and visible through on deck signage. 
• Meet Management has the discretion to split warm-up, as they see fit, to ensure a safe warmup environment (swimmers per lane) exists (i.e. by club, gender or age). A split warm up must be communicated in some fashion prior to the start of warm-up. This can be through a precompetition handout or email, a technical meeting, or a general announcement.