The Proud 2 Play NZ festival was held in Auckland 13-20 February 2016.

7 DSW members went to the indoor  swimming competition.

Event details:

No matter how competitive you feel, the event will be a great place to enjoy swimming with LGBT people from all around the Asia-Pacific region.  It’s a chance to try swimming in a race (even one length!), to try another sport, and to support others.   The Ocean Swim is on Saturday 13 Feb, and the Big Gay Out festival is on Sunday 14 Feb – and the other sports will take place throughout the week.  The Pride Festival runs 5-20 Feb, with the Parade and Proud Party on Saturday 20 Feb.

Lots of reasons to be there!

So plan to be in Auckland 13-20 February 2016!

Swimming Event Details

The swimming event is on Mon 15-Tue 16 at West Wave Pool and Leisure Centre.

The pool is 50m long.
The schedule of events is as follows:
Day 1: (Mon 15 Feb, 9am-2pm)

1. 1500 Free
2. 100 Breast
3. 50 Free
4. 200 Back
5. 4 x 50 Medley (women, men, mixed) (DSW Capital Relay Challenge Shield)
<Break>
6. 200 IM
7. 100 Free
8. 50 Breast
9. 100 Back
10. 4 x 100 Free Relay (women, men, mixed)

Day 2: (Tue 16 Feb, 9am-2pm)

11. 800 free
12. 50 Fly
13. 200 Breast
14. 200 Free
15. 4 x 50 Free Relay
<Break>
16. 50 Back
17. 400 Free
18. 100 Fly
19. ?x50 Free Relay (TAMS Anniversary Cup)
20. 6×50 Free Relay (Inaugural Trans-Tasman Cup)

You can enter a maximum of 3 individual events per day (maximum of 6 total).

Relays – will be deck entries on the day.

Details of the DSW Shield and TAMS Cup can be found on this page.

Registration and more information about the swimming event is on the Proud 2 Play Swimming Page.

What do to to register

The Proud 2 Play event organisers would love you to reigster as soon as you can.  Here is information to help you do that.

If you just register for swimming, it’s going to cost a total of $119: That’s $39 for overall Proud 2 Play registration, and $80 for the actual swimming event.

What you need/need to know before you start:

• A credit card for payment
• Your own personal details (phone number, address)
• An emergency contact name + phone number
• The DSW team password, which is: DSWswimming
• You need seed times for each of your events – see more information below about this
• When asked for your date of birth – give that
• But when asked for agework out what you’ll be on 31 Dec 2016 – which for most of us is one year more than our current age
• At the end of the registration process you won’t be able to pay until you choose the individual swimming events (up to 6) you’re going to enter.  Choose them one at a time and enter your seed time for each.

How it all works

In a swim meet like this one, there are a set of events (e.g. 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke etc.).

• For each event every swimmer gives the time that they expect to swim for that event – that’s their seed time.
• Swimmers with similar seed times swim in the same heat – so everyone in the same heat more or less starts and finishes together:  in your heat you’ll be swimming alongside other people who are just as fast as you.
• Within each event the slowest heats are swum first, fastest last.
• There are no finals – only these heats.
• At the end of each event the swimmers’ times are grouped by sex (M/F) and by five year age group:  e.g. Males aged 50-54, or Females 35-39.
• Gold, silver and bronze go to the swimmers who are the three fastest in their age/sex group.  It doesn’t matter which particular heat anyone swam in.
• If you’re the only person of your sex in your age group you’ll win gold every time you swim!

How to choose your seed times

First choose your events (they’re all listed above).
Ignore the relays – we’ll deal with them closer to the time or when we get to Auckland (we may ask you to join in a relay if you’d like to)

You can choose a maximum of 3 individual events per day.  Fewer is fine!
It’s a 50m pool: if you don’t like doing turns, then just choose lots of 50m events.

If you’ve already timed yourself in the pool for your chosen events that’s great.  Write down your times so they’re handy when you register.

If you’ve got no idea of your seed times at all: then

• Choose your events
• Take a look at this results document from the 2011 Wellington Outgames.
• Find the event you need a seed time for, and then find the times that people swam in that event in 2011.
• Find swimmers of the same age and sex as you and you’ll get a good idea of the times that people like you normally swim (You may recognise some DSW swimmers in there).
• There’s always a range of times of course – just pick a seed time (in minutes and seconds) that looks reasonable to you.
• Take a note of the seed times in the format mm:ss.ss (e.g. 01:15.00 for 1 min 15 dec) so you’re ready to enter them when you register.

Other things to think about

• Don’t stress about choosing the seed times exactly: there are no consequences if your seed time is very different from your actual time.
• The pool is 50m long.
• There is disco music during the event.
• It’s lots of fun.
• The event is only 9am-2pm each day, so there’s lots of time for relaxing afterwards.
• When starting a race you don’t have to dive off the blocks at the end of the lane – you can jump in from beside the blocks if you prefer.
• You’ll need flights and accommodation – the pool is out west in Henderson, so we’ll work out car sharing or other means of getting about when we’re up there.
• Some people may like to share accommodation and travel together – we can arrange that through the Facebook page.
• If you haven’t got DSW togs or a DSW T-shirt then make sure you buy these (blank and black) and get them to Richard before 20 January – so they can be printed in time.  $15 per item for printing.
• We’re also getting pretty Rainbow Team Wellington t-shirts printed.  They’re a rainbow fern. $30 for printing – get a blank black t-shirt to Richard by 20 January if you’d like one of those too.
• The Proud 2 Play swimming page is here

Any other questions?

Talk to Gareth, Richard, Martin, or any of the other DSW swimmers who have been to a gay swim meet.  You can email Richard at admin@dsw.org.nz

Ready to register?

Go to the Registration page of Proud2Play