DR Jane wrote:
DR Jennifer it seems odd to me the swimmers don't compete against each other at the same time. I'm glad you find it interesting since you are the one watching 
From your response I'm not sure if I explained it properly.
The swimmers are competing against other swimmers, with comparable times. Only the boys and girls are mixed together (swimming against each other). Also since these are the first meets sometimes the seed times (times the coaches send as the swimmers times) are not accurate (for instance they put my niece at 33 seconds for butterfly when her race time was 24 seconds).
What I meant by "they don't swim against each other" is that say for example for butterfly. There were 25 heats. If you race in heat 22 and are the fastest they still have to compare your time to the other 25 heats. So sometimes there are kids in your heat who are not that great. Or sometimes you could win your heat, yet there could be 10 people faster than you in the other heats.
In summer swimming you know right away if you win or not. It is girls vs girls only. Coaches decide which are there fastest swimmers to put in the first heat.
It actually wasn't that interesting to watch yesterday except for when my niece was swimming.