While competitive swimming may not be the most popular or well-known sport, most people could probably tell you some basics- maybe that it involves using your arms and legs to get through the water, or that there is a little black T at the bottom of the pool. Competitive swim teams, however, have quite a different perspective on this sport. And these teams are excited to get together and compete at Regionals, a championship swim meet that hosts teams from around Southeast Michigan in a fun, rather large, meet.

Swimming is a water sport composed of four different strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. Swimmers can compete in these disciplines in different lengths, as well as an individual medley, which is an event with all four strokes. At the start of events, swimmers do a ‘start’ where they jump from a block into the water and then begin the race.

This meet requires certain times to compete. This cutoff used to be significantly harder to make in years previous, but with the COVID-19 closures in 2020 and 2021, times have gotten slower and more accessible. This meet is a “faster-than, slower-than,” competition, meaning that you have to be faster than certain times in events that you want to compete in, but slower than the much harder State times. Basically, you can’t have State meet times and still try and compete in those events at Regionals. It would make the competition unfair and daunting for slower swimmers who couldn’t make those State meet level times.

Excitement for this event is infiltrating every team in Southeast MI as they gear up for the weekend. Teams from around the region are resting in advance, visualizing their races, or doing special workouts to prepare properly for the meet. This process is known as tapering, and is very common in most competitive swim teams. A huge part of sports is health, and this process is crucial for a healthy swim meet, especially at a high level.