Information for Stroke and Turn Officials
Training Dates for Officials
Click on the button to see all training dates. We usualually schedule 4-6 training dates between Late October and Early December
Links for Officials from USA Swimming
Videos for Officials from USA Swimming
DQ Codes and Slips
Responses from Questionnaire from Summer 2025
A questionnaire was sent out to those who went to the training and passed the test over the last 2 years. Below are the general responses from the 25 people who responded.
If you have anything you would like to add to this list, please reach out to Arnie at coacharnie@yahoo.com.
Common Disqualifications
- Breaststroke feet
- Butterfly arms
- Backstroke turns
- Finishing without both hands for butterfly or breaststroke
- Breaststroke kick
- Butterfly kick
- Breast and Fly touch
- Multiple pulls underwater for Breaststroke
- Pulling arms past hips in breaststroke after first pull
- Non Simultaneous touch on Fly and Breast
- Wrong kick on Fly or Breast
- Swimmers not remaining on back at finish for backstroke
Weird things that were seen while officiating
- Swimmer just stop in the middle of the pool
- Doing a front flip on a stroke other than freestyle
- Pushing off after turn on front when swimming backstroke
- Swimmer dove in and ended up in a different lane
- Pulling on the lane lines
Challenges you faced while officiating
- Rusty at beginning
- Not having a lot of other officials
- Filling out DQ slips
- Just miss things
- Crowded deck
- Younger swimmers do some strange /unexpected things and not sure if is a DQ or not
- The pace of the meet and everything that needs to be done
- Bathroom breaks
- Keeping track of race numbers (heat and event number)
- Hard to see the lanes in the middle of the pool
- Difficult to monitor all the lanes assigned
- Think I see DQ out of the corner of my eye – do not call those – you have to be directly seeing the DQ
What should be added to the training
- Quick reference guide
- Watch from the deck and observe during practices
- Videos clips
- Wear crocks or something that has traction but can get wet
- More info on crossover turns
- Explain difference between scissors and flutter kick