Aims

  • Look at different levels of competitive swimming
  • Differences between gala types
  • What are the benefits for children taking part in competitions?

The benefits

  • Children become competitive, as they refine and practise skills, and develop co-ordination and cognitive abilities
  • Helps to develop healthy attitudes about winning and losing
  • Children learn about their abilities and limitations
  • Learn to participate in team events as well as an individual
  • Learn about rules of sport
  • Can encourage growth and push children to excel

The Swimming Competition Structure

  • Unlicensed meets
  • Licensed meets
  • County Development Meet
  • County Championships
  • Regional Championships
  • National Championships

Licensed Meets:

Level 4:

This level allows for the Swimmers times to be entered on the ASA National Rankings database and are accepted Entry times for the County Championships. Our Club Championships are a Level 4 Licensed Meet.

Level 3:

These galas are aimed at County standard Swimmers. The Swimmers times are entered on the ASA National Rankings database and are accepted Entry times for County & Regional Championships.

Level 2:

These galas are aimed at Regional standard Swimmers and are swum in 25m Pools. The Swimmers times are entered on the ASA National Rankings database and are accepted Entry times for County, Regional and National Championships.

Level 1:

These galas are aimed at Regional standard Swimmers and are swum in 50m Pools. The Swimmers times are entered on the ASA National Rankings database and are accepted Entry times for County, Regional and National Championships.

Competitive Swimming – County/Regional/National levels.

County Development

This level was introduced to give swimmers who are close to County standard the opportunity to achieve County qualifying times by competing against Swimmers of a similar standard. This is a Level 3 Licensed Meet.

Cambridgeshire Championships

This standard ensures that the best swimmers in the county compete against each other. Entry to these Championships is subject to achieving qualifying times which are set each year.

Regional Championships

As above the best swimmers from the East Region compete against each other, and have qualifying times which swimmers must achieve to be allowed to compete.

National Championships

This is where the top swimmers in the country come together to national honours.

 

At age group level we want the swimmers to have times in all strokes & distances. There will be a times in a swimmers life when they don’t particularly like a certain stroke or distance, but by working with the coach it is important to overcome this. 

SWIMMING TERMINOLOGY

New to swimming? Or are you just not sure what something means, in either case hopefully you'll find what you're looking for on this list.

Pools

Longcourse      Refers to any swimming pool 50m long, hence any longcourse championships will be held in a 50m pool

Shortcourse     For a pool to be classed as shortcourse it must be either 25 yards or 25m long.

Races

DNQ    Did Not Qualify. Found in results to indicate a swimmer did not progress from the heats to the final
DNS    

Did Not Start. This will sometimes appear next to a swimmers name in the results of an event which they had entered but either did not turn up for or withdrew from
DNF      Did Not Finish. Also found in the results, this indicates that a swimmer failed to finish the race
Heat    A preliminary round to determine which swimmers go on to the final. Swimmers will usually be put in entered time order, with the fastest swimmers going in the last heat
Splits   Time it takes to complete a given section of a race. For example, your 50m split on a 100m swim would be the time it took you to complete the first 50m of the race. Splits can be very helpful when planning how to pace an event
Individual Medley (IM)      Race in which a different stroke is swum for each 1/4 of the race. Usually either a 100m, 200m or 400m distance. Strokes are swum in butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle order
Freestyle          An event in which any stroke can be used. Almost always swimmers use frontcrawl as it the quickest of the four strokes
Blocks  The same principle as starting blocks in a running race. Swimmers use these as a small platform from which to launch themselves into the water at the start of a race.