This is a request to the Swim Department of Chinese Swimming Club to organise an internal time trial for club swimmers, during the weekend of 15 February 2020.

This is intended to replace the Singapore Swim Series 2 (SSS2), which was scheduled to be held from 14 to 16 February 2020, but which was cancelled on 8 February 2020 due to the escalating coronavirus situation in Singapore.

Our swimmers and coaches have trained and worked hard for SSS2, and while we understand that there are good reasons behind Singapore Swimming's cancellation of SSS2, this cancellation will have an impact on swimmers' morale, as they have been looking forward to racing next weekend, and have put in significant time and effort to train for SSS2.

A replacement internal time trial on the weekend of 15 February will provide our swimmers the opportunity to race on the same weekend as SSS2, and will also allow coaches and the Club to track swimmers' progress, providing a close approximation of how swimmers would have performed if SSS2 had carried on as scheduled.

The following parameters are suggested for the proposed internal time trial (to keep as close to what would have been the case if SSS2 had proceeded) :

1. the events would mirror those which would have been held under SSS2
2. only swimmers who had registered for SSS2 would be eligible to participate, and swimmers would only be allowed to participate in events which they had registered to swim in at SSS2
3. timings achieved will be able to be used for upgrading purposes
4. no medals will be awarded

Importantly, as this will be an internal club event, there will be no more exposure to possible coronavirus infection for our swimmers, as compared with a normal weekend training session.

Swimmers and parents who had committed to participating in SSS2 have already set aside the weekend for this, so the proposed time trial should not have a major impact on their schedules.

Coaches would also have attended SSS2 as well and while the timing of an internal time trial might be slightly different from what was planned under SSS2 (e.g. it may be possible to organise all events in the morning of 15 February, instead of spreading them out over 2.5 days/five sessions), this should hopefully not pose major scheduling difficulties.

We at CSC are very fortunate that we have the necessary equipment and expertise to run our own events. While we appreciate that putting together an internal event at short notice will create additional work for the Swim Department, we hope that this can be considered in the interests of the swimmers and the Club.

Several parents have volunteered to provide assistance at any internal time trial if requested by the club, while others have suggested that we could do this on a more bare-bones basis – e.g. parents will understand if tentage cannot be procured in time for the call area.

We hope that the Swim Department and the Club generally will consider this request as we believe it to be in the interests of the Club and our swimmers.

Thank you.