How do I enter a meet?

There is a calendar of all galas that the club intends to enter on the website. Most galas open for entry a couple of months before their date. The steps to enter are then simple:

1. When an event becomes open for entries, you will be notified via the website/NSSC Competition Secretary. You will also be told a closing date for entries – note that if your entry (with payment) is not received by this date, you will not be able to enter! Note too that this date may not be the same as the closing date advertised on the website of the host club – this is because club entries must often be made in a group and therefore the NSSC Competition Secretary needs time to process them before submission.
2. Most gala entries are now done online. You will be asked to specify the events your swimmer will be entering and their time for that event depending on the level of the meet. 
3. Simply email the events/races you wish to enter to [email protected]. Our Competitions Secretary, Emily, will then group them with everyone else's entries and send them off to the host on behalf of our club. Usually, Emily will be able to identify your swimmer's times but, if you want to make sure these are the best times, then please add these to the email. If your swimmer does not have a time for a particular event you should speak to your coach – in some cases it may be possible to use a time from training as an indication. Note that meets may ask for long course – swum in a 50m pool – or short course – swum in a 25m pool – times. There are conversion tables online (follow the link here) to convert a time swum in one to the other. Generally, meets held in 50m pools will ask for long course entry times and vice versa.
4. While some meets are optional, others are advised by coaches. If your swimmer will not be entering an advised meet, you should let your swimmer’s coach know. As explained above, racing is an important (and hopefully fun!) element of a swimmer’s development.
5. You should note that entering a meet doesn’t guarantee entry. For obvious reasons, meet organisers must restrict the number of swimmers entering to prevent sessions running for hours and hours. This may be on a first-come-first-served basis, or on the basis of a swimmer’s entry times. If your swimmer’s entry is rejected, you will be informed and your entry fees refunded or credited to your club account.
6. Once the gala is full or the deadline for entries has passed, a list of 'accepted entries' will be published. You will normally be notified of this by our Competitions Secretary. It is important that you check your swimmer's entries are correct as there is a small window of opportunity to make changes before the session timings and heat sheets are published.

What should I enter?

Your coach will likely recommend events to your swimmer and you should encourage them to follow these as far as possible. You should also encourage your swimmer to enter a wide variety of events – longer events are particularly important for younger swimmers. However, it is important to remember that competition should be fun. If a swimmer is anxious about doing a particular event then it is worth mentioning it to your swimmer’s coach, who will be able to address this with the swimmer in training.

When you enter a gala, it is important to consider the length of the day, the number of races and how close together they are. It is not advisable, for example, to swim every event in every session of a 2-day gala – by the end of it, your swimmer (and you!) will be exhausted. A rough figure would be 3 races per session, but actually, this will vary depending on the races, the timings and also from swimmer to swimmer.

Not all galas offer all events but the full range of events is:

• Freestyle – 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m
• Breaststroke – 50m, 100m, 200m
• Backstroke – 50m, 100m, 200m
• Butterfly – 50m, 100m, 200m
• Individual Medley (IM) – 100m, 200m, 400m – where swimmers swim one quarter of the distance in each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and front crawl (in that order)

There are also events called ‘skins’, where a full heat of swimmers will swim the same distance repeatedly, with the slowest swimmer knocked out on each repetition. These are enormous fun to watch and there are often cash prizes available as an added incentive!