Swimmer Marking
What is Marking?
You must mark your swimmer to reflect their name and which event, heat, lane, and relay they are racing. This is used to help the Clerk of Course identify swimmers and to remind the swimmer of their events. Use the Heat Sheet to find and highlight your child's events.
Mark the arm as illustrated below in the picture in the order of Event/Heat/Lane/Relay Leg. Write on clean dry skin with no sunscreen. It is best to do this before arriving at the pool to minimize sunscreen washing it away. Please also write your child's full name on their upper back.
Marking up your Swimmer
- Meet events are standard for most in season meets.
- Find your child’s race information on the Event Reports/Heat Sheets.
- Label your swimmers with a black sharpie with their race details.
- On their back, mark their name ‘SMITH, JOANNE’. You can abbreviate so long as it is enough information for ready bench volunteers to easily identify your swimmer.
- On their forearm, mark their event information: (See further below for Stroke labels)
Example of Arm Marking:
For relays, add a slash followed by the position on the relay after the lane# (1, 2, 3 or 4)
Stroke
OPTIONAL: If you'd like to note the stroke do so after the lane designation. It can be difficult to fit legibly on smaller arms, though.
- FR = Freestyle
- BA = Back Stroke
- BR = Breast Stroke
- FLY = Butterfly
- IM = Individual Medley
- FRR = Free Relay (All swimmers swim freestyle)
- For Medley Relay put the actual stroke (each swimmer swims a different stroke: 1st = back, 2nd=breast, 3rd=fly, 4th=free)
Relay Marking
This will designate the relay leg the child is swimming.
- 1/1 = Lane 1, first relay leg
- 4/2 = Lane 4, 2nd relay leg **If the Medley Relay this will be Breast Stroke
