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Team-Lane Seeding

Purpose

Explain how team-lane templates, team lane slots, and finals scoring heats work together in 2Timer seeding.

This guide is for meet formats where lanes are intentionally associated with teams, such as dual meets, tri-meets, quads, and other small scored T&F formats.

What Team-Lane Seeding Is

Team-lane seeding is a lane-assignment mode for lane-start running rounds.

Instead of assigning every lane only by seed order, 2Timer can reserve specific lane blocks for team slots. The actual team in each slot comes from the meet’s team setup.

Example idea:

  • Team lane template says slot 1 owns lanes 2, 4, 6, 8.
  • Team lane template says slot 2 owns lanes 1, 3, 5, 7.
  • The meet’s Teams page says Team A is slot 1 and Team B is slot 2.
  • When the round is seeded, Team A athletes are placed into Team A’s reserved lanes and Team B athletes are placed into Team B’s reserved lanes.

Team-lane seeding is usually used in scored team formats, but the template itself does not award points. T&F team scoring still comes from the scoring rules and finals scoring heats.

Team-Lane Templates

Open Settings -> Team Lane Templates to inspect the built-in templates.

A template defines which lane numbers belong to each team slot inside one heat. 2Timer includes templates for common meet shapes:

Template family Typical use What it means
Dual Two-team formats Two team slots split the lane blocks
Tri Three-team formats Three team slots receive lane groups
Quad Four-team formats Four team slots receive lane pairs
8-way Up to eight teams Each slot can own an individual lane

Some template families include rotated variants such as Dual A / Dual B, Tri A / Tri B / Tri C, and Quad A through Quad D. Use rotated variants when you want lane ownership to vary across events so the same team does not always receive the same preferred lanes.

Templates are global definitions. Choosing or viewing a template in Settings does not change a meet until a round uses team-lane seeding and the meet teams have lane slots assigned.

Team Lane Slots

Open the meet’s Teams page to assign each team a Lane Slot.

Important behavior:

  • 0 means the team is not assigned to a reserved team-lane slot.
  • Positive values map a team into the matching template slot.
  • Team lane slots are meet-wide.
  • A team’s lane slot is not the same thing as whether the team scores points.

For example, if Team A has Lane Slot 1, and the selected template gives slot 1 lanes 2, 4, 6, 8, then Team A owns those reserved lanes when that template is used.

Teams marked Unattached are excluded from team scoring, but lane-slot setup is still its own field. Keep scoring status and lane-slot ownership clear when reviewing the teams list.

Set Up a Round

Open Seeding, choose the event round, and expand Seeding rules.

For a lane-start running round:

  1. Set lane or position order to Team lane seeding.
  2. Choose the team-lane template.
  3. Preview the round.
  4. Confirm the reserved-lane summary and heat layout.
  5. Save assignments when the preview is correct.

Team-lane seeding is only for lane-start running rounds. It is not used for field events, waterfall starts, or alley starts.

How 2Timer Places Athletes

When team-lane seeding is active, 2Timer:

  • ranks athletes by the round’s seed source
  • places athletes from teams with matching lane slots into their reserved template lanes
  • creates enough heats to satisfy reserved team-lane capacity
  • places athletes from teams without assigned lane slots into available non-reserved space when ordinary team-lane seeding is being used

Team-lane seeding is intentionally incompatible with teammate split. If team-lane seeding is selected, teammate split is hidden or turned off because the reserved team lanes are the stronger rule.

Finals Scoring Heats

T&F team points come from finals results. If a finals round has multiple heats or sections, 2Timer can restrict team scoring to selected finals heats.

Configure that in the event editor, not in the seeding workspace:

  1. Open the event editor.
  2. Go to the finals round card.
  3. Enable Only some finals heats score.
  4. Select the finals heats that should award team points.

If no scoring-heats override is set, all finals heats score by default.

How Team-Lane Seeding Works With Scoring Heats

When a finals round has selected scoring heats and the round uses team-lane seeding:

  • team-lane reserved placement applies only inside the configured scoring heats
  • remaining athletes are placed into non-scoring finals heats wherever they fit
  • open lanes inside scoring heats are not filled by unassigned-team remainder athletes
  • non-scoring finals heats remain visible in start lists, results, and reports
  • team points come only from the configured scoring heats

This supports a common small-meet pattern: one scoring finals heat uses the assigned team-lane template, while the remaining entrants still get lanes in non-scoring heats.

For non-finals rounds, team-lane seeding can still be selected if the round is a lane-start running round. That is uncommon for this meet style, but 2Timer does not block it.

Typical Finals-Only Workflow

  1. Create or import the meet teams.
  2. Assign each scoring team the correct Lane Slot on the Teams page.
  3. Review Settings -> Team Lane Templates and choose the template family you want.
  4. Confirm the event’s finals round has the correct heat count.
  5. If only some finals heats score, set the finals scoring heats in the event editor.
  6. Open the event in Seeding.
  7. Select Team lane seeding and the template.
  8. Preview the round and check scoring vs non-scoring heat labels.
  9. Save assignments.
  10. After results are entered, verify team totals on team scoring reports.

Common Problems

Problem Likely cause Fix
Team-lane option does not appear The round is not a lane-start running setup Use a lane-start running round
Template choice has no effect Lane order is not set to team-lane seeding Switch the round to team-lane seeding
A team is not getting reserved lanes The team has Lane Slot 0 or the wrong slot Fix the team’s Lane Slot
Two teams are fighting for the same lanes Both teams have the same Lane Slot Give each scoring team a unique slot
Teammate split disappeared Team-lane seeding was selected This is expected
Non-scoring heats still show in reports Non-scoring heats are still real heats This is expected; they do not award team points
Team points include the wrong heat Finals scoring heats are not configured correctly Update the finals scoring-heats setting in the event editor

Verification Checklist

  • The event is a T&F lane-start running event.
  • Teams have clean team codes.
  • Scoring teams have the intended Lane Slot values.
  • The selected team-lane template matches the meet format.
  • Finals heat count is correct.
  • Finals scoring heats are selected if only some finals heats should score.
  • The seeding preview shows reserved lanes only in scoring heats when a scoring-heats subset is configured.
  • Team scoring reports are checked after results are entered.

Related Pages

Metadata

  • Last Updated: 2026-05-04
  • Version: 0.2
  • Status: Active