A Basic Guide to Competition

Swimming competitions - also referred to as meets or galas - offer a chance for swimmers to challenge themselves racing against others, as well as forming a valuable component of their training in competitive swimming. As a swimmer in a competitive club, you are expected to enter competitions.

Almost all young swimmers find racing an enormously enjoyable part of their swimming. However, it can also be quite daunting – both for the swimmer and the parent! The guide below will helpfully clear up some questions you may have about competition and allow you and your swimmer to enjoy the experience of competing.

What are the different ways in which my child can compete?

Internal competitions

The club runs several of its own competitions during the year. We run 1 open meet (see below) in December called 'Yule in the Pool' where other swimming clubs are also invited, while the other galas are just Newcastle swimmers. The main internal competition is club champs, which is held across several sessions in Sept/Oct. All swimmers are strongly encouraged to enter this event; being held in our home pool and limited to club members, it is a great opportunity for the younger swimmers to experience formal racing for the first time. In addition, time trials are held throughout the year. Again, these are just for our own swimmers and are an ideal opportunity to gain race practice before progressing to an open meet. For swimmers nine and over this is an ideal opportunity to gain county qualifying times for the County Championships, which take place in February each year.

Open meets

Besides its own gala 'Yule in the Pool', the club also attends a number of open meets. These are galas held by other clubs, that are open to any swimming club to enter. A calendar of the events the club will be entering over the next few months is available on the website, just scroll to the bottom of the home page. Swimmers should only enter events that the club has selected to attend and that have been recommended for their squad. Competitions are carefully selected to fit in with your child’s training programme and entering other events can have a negative effect on their training. If in doubt, you should check with your child’s coach to find out if the competition is appropriate for your child.

Open meets are licensed by Swim England (our governing body). Levels 1 and 2 are the highest grades, with Level 1 meets always swum long course. This means that they are swum in a 50m pool instead of a short course (25m) pool. L1 and L2 meets will normally have a minimum entry time. This means that your swimmer must have previously swum faster than the given time at a licensed meet. Often, they will have had to have swum the time in the last 12 months. All licensed times are recorded on the Swim England Rankings Database. You can find your swimmer, their swimming history and their recorded best times at this link. Level 3 and 4 meets will often have maximum (‘not faster than’) entry times for each event. If your swimmer has previously swum faster than this time in competition, they cannot enter the event. If they swim faster than the ‘not faster than’ time during the competition, they may be given a ‘speeding ticket’ rather than being included in the medal rankings.

L1 meets are important because only times from these events can be used as an entry time for the National Championships. Levels 2 and 3 meets can be used to enter any other meet while times from Level 4 meets are suitable for most meets (including County Champs but NOT the Regional Champs).

Invitation only meets

Some clubs choose to invite only certain clubs to their Open meets in order to limit numbers. Other than this, these meets are the same as any open meet.

Age Group championships

Competing at any of these championships is a great target and achievement for young swimmers. There are four basic levels: County, Regional (West Midlands Region), National (English) and British Championships. Qualifying times are required to enter each of these events. Staffordshire County Champs are usually held over 2 weekends in January/February and qualifying times can be downloaded from the Staffs ASA website. All of National squad plus the vast majority from Regional squad and Development squad reach the level to enter the county championships each year.

Newcastle are in the West Midlands Region and these Regional Championships are usually held over 2 weekends in May. Qualifying times (which are regularly reviewed) are somewhere between County and National qualifying times. The majority of swimmers in National squad have reached Regional standard plus a few from Regional squad. The Regional Summer Champs are held in April/May in a LC pool. The Regional Winter Champs are held in November in a SC pool.

The National (English) Age Group and Youth championships and the British Championships have both summer and winter versions. The main ones are held in the summer, usually at the end of July to the beginning of August. The British Championships are an invitation only meet for the fastest 24 swimmers in GB in each event. The next fastest swimmers are invited to compete at the English Nationals. Ranking times are usually taken from Level 1 times swum between approximately March and May of the same year. The youngest age group for boys is 13/14 and for girls 12/13 years. There is a third British Champs competition held in April each year. This also serves as trials for the Commonwealth Games or the Olympic Games in applicable years. Over the last few years Newcastle has sent around 6 swimmers up to the Nationals each year. During that time we have had several finalists, medal winners and national champions. For the size of our club, we punch well above our weight.

League galas

Newcastle are currently entered into a local league (Staffs League for clubs within Staffordshire), and in the West Midlands division of the National Arena League. Swimmers from all squads could be selected to take part in these leagues. League galas are a great opportunity for swimmers to compete for their club and have an exciting team atmosphere. Teams are picked by the coaches to be the best team possible. Races usually comprise a mix of individual events and team races.  Swimmers are informed well in advance of the event and the dates for these events are published on our website. If your swimmer is selected for the team you should please confirm their availability as early as possible and make every effort to attend.

Time trials, test sets and Swim England competitive start award

Time trials and test sets are important, particularly if you have not swum in galas before. They take place during normal training sessions and enable you (and us) to see the effect of all that training. The structure also gives young swimmers a first taste of swimming under timed conditions. The times from these trials are important; they are used as a guide for gala entries when a swimmer has not swum an event previously in competition and for team selection at league galas. Test sets are a mechanism for the coaches to see how effective the recent period of training has been and they test specific skills, such as leg kick and endurance, as well as speed. The results are used to track an individual’s progress over time.

In order to start from the blocks in competition – the platform at the start of a lane from which a swimmer dives – a young swimmer must have deemed by a coach to have reached the standard of the SE competitive start award. This means they are capable of safely executing a racing dive from starting blocks at the shallow end of the pool. All swimmers are expected to have achieved this level by the time they enter Development squad. Assessment takes place in normal training sessions.

Is there a Swimming Season?

Swimming is an all-year-round sport with the season starting in September and finishing mid-August. Newcastle swimmers usually have the last 2 weeks of August as summer break. The meet season is usually split into two halves: September to the end of December is the short course season and most galas are run in a 25m pool (like J2 and NULS). March sees the beginning of the long course season where swimmers can compete in a 50m pool (like Ponds Forge in Sheffield). This is not cut and dried and short course meets are generally available all year round.

When can my child compete?

For a swimmer to compete at an event, they will usually have to be at least 9 years of age, either on the last day of the competition or by the end of the year (depending on the licence granted for that event). When swimmers are of the age, coaches will discuss with the swimmer when it will be appropriate to enter events. This is a rule that applies to all licensed competitions. If your child is less than 9 years old, they will therefore only be able to race in time trials and specified internal events. Once they are 9, as long as they are Swim England ‘Club Compete’ members, they may enter other external meets. There are many hundreds of open meets available but the open meets that the club is attending are advertised on the website. You should only enter meets that the club has selected to attend and, if the meet is not advised for your swimmer’s squad, they should consult with their coach before doing so.

Why compete?

Because it’s fun! But seriously…, for most swimmers, competition is something that – whilst perhaps daunting at first – turns into a fun opportunity to challenge themselves, race against their peers and be part of a team. But competing is also a key part of a young swimmer’s development and training. Formal competitions provide swimmers with:

• something to train towards
• a chance to review their training progress relative to their aims and set new targets/adjust their training accordingly
• times to use in training: especially moving up through the squads, swimmers will be set target times based on current PBs in order to make sure they’re working at the correct training intensity. Surprising as it may be, swimmers will not see the best improvement from simply going as fast as possible all the time! There are different training ‘zones’ that they need to be training across and heart rates and PBs are the easiest way for a swimmer to know where they are working.

In order to gain these benefits fully, swimmers need to be aware of their own PBs. Good ways to help them with this are to encourage them to look at their time (not just their position) in the results at a gala and to keep their own record of their times in their logbook or a notebook in their bag – a page per event, for example, where they can record the date and their time each time they race.

Because competitions are very much a part of training, coaches will identify particular competitions and races to fit in with an individual squad’s training needs. Swimmers are strongly encouraged to follow this advice, even if it means doing events they are less keen on (longer distances, different strokes…). If your swimmer is worried by a recommendation, they should talk to their coach who will be able to help them with their concern – extra practice in training etc.

This link between training and competition also means that while sometimes a coach will ask swimmers to rest before a competition, other times they may be expected to train as normal. General rule of thumb is that if your coach has not explicitly told you that your swimmer should not be at a session, they should be training as normal!