The Plant City Family YMCA’s first developmental swim meet went as smoothly as a Michael Phelps butterfly run.
Seventy-two swimmers from around the Tampa Metropolitan YMCA’s network of facilities hit the pool on July 28 for Plant City’s first and last home meet of the season, which runs through November. That figure includes 14 of the 18 Plant City Y developmental team members. Not including the swimmers, 124 spectators showed up to watch the kids get a taste of what competitive swimming is like.
“I think it went really, really well,” Aquatics Director Maggie Cattell says.
Swimmers were broken up into three age groups — 8 and under, 9-10 and 11 and up — and their age factored into race lengths. For example, the 8U group would swim a 25-meter freestyle while the 11 and up group swam a 50-meter freestyle. All events, save for the 100-meter individual medley, were co-ed.
The goal for each YMCA branch, according to Cattell, is for the developmental meets to feel more like a team event rather than a true competitive meet. There are no winners or losers in each race and no team or swimmer gets a trophy — it’s designed to make everyone feel like part of one team under the YMCA banner.
“They really want it to be as cohesive as it can be,” Cattell says.
Though the Plant City swimmers still have three meets to compete in, the Plant City Y will not host another developmental swim meet until 2018. The current schedule was designed to let each YMCA branch in the Tampa Metropolitan network host one monthly meet throughout the season.
Cattell says the Plant City Y will be ready for the next one. Though it had to add staff — two volunteers and one lifeguard — for the occasion, she says there were “just enough people” with the pool area at capacity for nothing to go wrong.
The YMCA’s developmental meets have been held on Friday afternoons but, with school getting back in session next week, the meets will now be held on Saturdays. For more information about the swim team, call (813) 757-6677.