GUIDE TO WRITING A RACE REPORT

Here is a short guide to writing a race report about your swimmer after an event. The club uses this information for Facebook/Website and local newspapers to mark their progress and success at galas.

A nominated volunteer parent will collate paragraphs sent in by you as one of the parents of the swimmers taking part. Multiple swimmers take part in these events so it's a huge task for the collator to write paragraphs on each of the swimmers. It's helpful if parents do their bit and write a paragraph or two about their own child's achievement. At the event, take a note of how they did to help you remember details and/or use the info on Meet Mobile to see their progress.

Here's what a good paragraph looks like:

A gold medal and four personal bests were achieved by A Swimmer when he raced at his first Christmas Cracker Gala in Newry. In his favoured Fly event, he not only achieved a 15 second PB but was the fastest boy in his 12 year age group, winning a gold medal. He enjoyed PBs in the 100 IM and Backstroke and knocked a whopping 20 seconds off his Breaststroke time.

 

The gold medal and PBS are the most important "headline info" so put those in first. Next, comes more detail including the event he got the gold medal in. It mentions his age group and we know Fly is his favoured stroke. Then go on to the PBs and pull out any particularly interesting info such as the impressive 20 second PB. 

If your swimmer did not win a medal, there's still plenty to say about their achievement. Talk about the benefit of the experience, PBs, first efforts etc.

Here's what another good one would look like:

It was a highly successful Meet for 11-year-old A Swimmer when she took a considerable total of 60 seconds off her times in her debut at Newry in three hotly contested events. The 10 second and 20 second PBS in Breaststroke and Fly were an achievement but it was the 30 Freestyle PB that particularly delighted both A Swimmer and her Coach Aaron Rickhuss. It gave her valuable experience, preparing her for the next Meet when she plans to swim in the IM for the first time.

A few other tips:

  1. Forget chronological order. When Theresa May went to Brussels, we didn't hear about what she ate for breakfast, her journey, her trip from the airport, who she met first. We heard about what happened i.e. she struck a deal/ she failed to strike a deal. Similarly, news and sports articles do not put an emphasis on chronological information e.g. the first swim of the day, swimming in the afternoon session. Just write about what happened. Think about the ticker tape that runs along the bottom of the screen in News 24/Sky News. That's the headline information we need to know about.

  1. Remember to put the most important information firstie best result, significant PB, making their debut, gained great experience etc.

 

  1. There is no need to talk about long, arduous journeys to Meets. The introductory paragraphs written by the collator will mention the timing of the event, the location, number of Lakelanders taking part so it is not needed to repeat that again.

 

  1. Little details like "Birthday boy Austin Cassidy" used in a report recently are great as they add a bit of character to the report. 

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