As youth sports return, some feel left behind

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    OAHU, Hawaii (KITV) — Under the current guidelines, tournaments are not allowed. Some swim coaches and athletes say that’s the only way they can compete.

“No tournaments, regattas, or similar multi-team condensed time-frame competitions are allowed in Tier 3, except as otherwise allowed by the Order,” reads section A-III of The City and County of Honolulu’s Tier 3 guidelines.

Joe Glenn, Head Coach of Aulea Swim Club in Kailua tells KITV4 he doesn’t think a “one size fits all” approach to reopening sports includes his sport.

“One of the clauses in the city rules is that you can only have two teams there. I understand that rule as it applies to basketball, soccer et cetera but when it applies to swimming it just doesn’t make any sense at all,” Glenn told KITV4.

Glenn said that in order for players to qualify for marks such as college scholarships and Olympic consideration, they need times recorded against a pool of other swimmers.

“Our club has 170 people. There’s another club that has 300 people. Theoretically, according to the rules, they could bring 300 I could bring 170 and that’s 470 swimmers but I can’t bring 10 teams with 10 swimmers each for 100 swimmers,” explained Glenn.

Glenn said he’d like to see the rules adjusted to enforce capacity limits on swim meets, as opposed to team limits.

“We’re not asking for special treatment, we’re just asking for common sense to be applied to the situation,” Glenn told KITV4.

Jonathan Reiter is a Senior at Iolani School. He swims for Coach Glenn’s club.

“The big thing about swimming is racing and to be able to get recruited by colleges you have to swim in swim meets and for people in Hawaii you can’t do that right now,” Reiter told KITV4.

Reiter is committed to swim at California Baptist University. However, he says he accomplished this by travelling to the mainland almost monthly to compete.

“It takes a toll on your family … for some people, they just can’t afford going to the mainland every month to compete,” Reiter said.

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