Competition Information
Wellington (Telford) SC enters swimming competitions throughout the year, giving our swimmers the chance to develop their skills, gain experience, and have fun as part of a team.
This page is here to explain how competitions work, cover common questions, and help you understand some of the terminology you might come across.
Rankings
Whenever a member takes part in a licenced swimming competition, the times are logged on the Swim England Website.
Our club also hosts licensed meets for athletes to have a taste of competition. These times, if licenced will also be logged on the Swim England Website.
Progression and Personal Bests (PB's) - On the Rankings website you can see progression, and personal best times. Have a look under the tab Rankings, then look at Individual Best Times. If you click on an event that is in blue text, you can see an individual’s progression on that event as well as historical data.
Event Rankings - If you click on the tab Rankings and then Event Rankings (12 months) this allows you to filter by event/ gender/ age, and then per club, county, or region. You can see here how a swimmer progresses within these categories.
FINA points - Notice on the website there are FINA points listed against each event when you are looking at individual times. FINA Points allows comparisons of results among different events. The FINA Point Scoring system assigns point values to swimming performances, more points for world class performances typically 1000 or more and fewer points for slower performances. They are another indicator of progression.
Competitions
You may encounter competitions on your aquatics parent journey, our event co-ordinator is Emma Scott-Gemmill. Competitions are broken into different types:
Club Championships - This is when athletes within the club compete against each other of the same age group, this event will always be licenced.
Time Trials – This is when athletes within the club compete to better their PB(s) in preparation for County/Regional qualifying times.
Leagues (Diddies / Arena League) − These are competitions that occur as part of a series of events at different venues all over the country at the same time. Some leagues are licenced, but many are not.
Open Meets − These are competitions that are open for athletes from the age of 9 (providing they meet the age restrictions and cut off times/ qualification times). They will have a set of conditions which explains how the athletes are picked. It may be a first come first served entry process, or they may take the fastest swimmers that enter.
County Championships − Each county will host Championships between January and March each year. These will have certain times you have to have reached at a previous licenced event within a qualifying window (timeframe) in order to compete. Athlete needs to be a minimum age of 10 in the year of the County gala.
Regional Championships − The Region will host a long course championship (April/May) and a short course championship (November) each year, with qualification times that swimmers will have to have reached within a timeframe (qualifying window) at licenced events.
British Championships − British Swimming will select the top 24 fastest athletes in the country in each event by age group to compete at this event.
Home Nations − Swim England will select the top 24 athletes (avoiding swimmers that have been selected to compete at the British Championships) in each event by age group to compete at the Swim England National Summer Meet each year. You can find a calendar of events at on the Swim England website.
Licensed Meets
Licensing Levels − when a competition is licenced, it means the times swum will appear on Rankings and can be used for entry into other competitions. There are four levels of licencing.
Level 4 − For the development of inexperienced athletes and those seeking to compete outside of their own club environment. Times recorded are suitable for entry into County Championships where acceptable to the County concerned and to Meets at Level 3.
Level 3 − To enable athletes to achieve times suitable for entry into Regional and County Championships and other Meets at Level 1 or Level 2.
Level 2 − Short Course only (25m length). To enable athletes to achieve qualifying times suitable for entry into National, Regional and County Championships.
Level 1 − Long Course only (50m length). To enable athletes to achieve qualifying times suitable for entry into National, Regional and County Championships.
Glossary of terms
| Freestyle | Any stroke can be swam (apart from breaststroke, backstroke or butterfly when doing a medley race) |
| PB | Personal best time |
| On the top / on the red (or other colour) | Terminology used about the clock, when telling swimmers when to start swimming |
| Set A | Specific list of tasks to complete during training |
| Drill | A particular skill practice, such as using arms only |
| At the wall | At the end of the pool |
| Splits | Each individual time of 25 metres (or 50m depending on the length of the pool) swum within a longer race |
| Pull | Using arms only |
| Kick | Using legs only |
| Block | The diving platform at the end of the pool used at the start of a race |
| Spearheading | Each heat is arranged so the fastest swimmers in that heat swim in the centre lanes and slower swimmers on the outer lanes (like an arrow) |
| Cyclical Seeding | A method of seeding swimmers when they are participating in a prelims/finals event. The fastest 18 to 24 swimmers are seeded in the last three heats, with the fastest swimmers being in the inside lanes |
| HDW | Heat Declared Winner. If a gala states HDW this mean there are no finals, the winner is the swimmer with the fastest time regardless of whether the swimmer swam in the first or last heat. |
| Rankings | The website where you can find all of the times your swimmer has achieved in licenced meets |
| DQ | Disqualified for an infraction |
| Time trials | A swim under competition rules to gain a time in a given stroke and distance |
| Short Course |
Events held in a 25m pool |
| Long Course |
Events held in a 50m pool |
Disqualifications
The governing body of swimming is World Aquatics.
All swimmers are coached to meet the World Aquatics rules for each stroke’s start, swim, and finish. The World Aquatics rules for swimming are found at World Aquatics swimming rules. Each swimming discipline has its own set of World Aquatics rules, open water, masters, diving, water polo and artistic swimming.
When at a swimming competition the officials on poolside are watching each swimmer to ensure they start, swim, and finish the race in accordance with the latest World Aquatics rules.
If a swimmer is performing an illegal start, stroke, or finish the official who has seen the infraction or error will report it to the race referee. If the referee accepts the report, a disqualification report will be completed Disqualification form.
The disqualification report includes a description of the infraction and the World Aquatics rule number that has been broken.
Coaches are encouraged to speak to the race referee to clarify the details of the infraction which they will then use in training to correct the swimmer’s technique.
The posted results either at the meet or online (each meet will give details of where to find the results online) will show the World Aquatics rule number broken for each swimmer that was disqualified in a particular race.
If an infraction had occurred, the swimmer cannot use this time to enter another swimming meet and the time will not be posted on rankings.
www.britishswimming.org/browse-sport/swimming/officials/general-resources/