USA Swimming provides for two types of end-of-season age group championship meets: (1) one per LSC per season; and (2) one per Zone per season. To compete in an event at one of these prestigious age group championship meets, an athlete must belong to the sponsoring LSC/Zone and have recently achieved a qualifying time in that event.
USA Swimming is organized into four geographic zones and 59 geographic regions called “Local Swim Committees” (LSCs). The boundaries of these LSCs tend to align with state boundaries.
Each of the 59 LSC is responsible for organizing an end-of-season championship meet for the age group swimmers in its region. These meets, typically called “Junior Olympics” or “JOs” for short, are open to the fastest age group athletes in the LSC. Each of the four Zones is responsible for organizing another end-of-season age group championship meet, called “Zones”, which are open to the fastest age group athletes in the Zone. Most 14/Under athletes aspire to compete in JOs and Zones, and view their participation in those meets as a sign of their success in the sport.
To participate in an event at these championship meets, an athlete must have swum the event before, and achieved a designated maximum time in the event. For example, to compete in the Girls 10/Under 50 yard Freestyle at the 2019 Potomac Valley SC Junior Olympics, a 10 year old girl must have swum that event in 32.69 seconds or less. To swim that same event at the 2019 Eastern Zone SC Age Group Championships, the same girl needs a 29.59 or less.
These time standards are chosen to achieve a target level of participation. LSCs with more athletes typically have more challenging time standards than LSCs with fewer athletes. Zone age group championships, which are open to the athletes in multiple LSCs, have the most challenging time standards.
Our goal is to compare age group championships across LSCs and Zones. To do that meaningfully, we need to put our analysis of these diverse meets on the same basis. For that reason, our analysis of these meets is limited to the ages 9 to 14.
We start at 9 years old because (a) very few 8/under athletes qualify for zone age group championships; and (b) some LSC age group championships provide for an 8/Under age group while most do not. If our analysis included 8/Unders, we would not be able to fairly compare meets with 8/Under qualifying times to those without.
We stop at 14 years old because (a) most age group championship meets are limited to 14/Under; (b) faster 15/over athletes participate in lsc/zone senior championships rather than lsc/zone age group championships; and (c) the fastest 15/over athletes compete in an entirely different set of championships under the USA-S Senior Program (sectionals, futures, junior nationals). If our analysis included 15/Overs, we would not be able to fairly compare championships that include 15/Overs with those that do not.