Swimmer Classification
The governing body for swimming in England is Swim England and Crewe Flyers Amateur Swimming Club is affiliated to Swim England. All our swimmers, coaches, officials, and helpers are registered members. Swim England will provide a Swim England number for the swimmer and insurance cover for all members and give access to various events. Members are allocated into one of three categories:
- Club Train (Category 1): Young swimmers in the lower squads that are too young to compete or swimmers that are training only are registered as Club Train. Club Train membership provides insurance whilst the swimmer is at training but won’t allow a swimmer to compete at an event, with the exception of Club Championships and unlicensed events for junior swimmers.
- Club Compete (Category 2): Swimmers who take part in competitions need to be registered as Club Compete. This category of membership provides access to the swimming rankings system and offers insurance to swimmers at training, club events and competitions.
- Club Support (Category 3): Club Support membership is for coaches, parents, helpers and volunteers.
Membership
As members of Swim England, fees are payable to the national governing body to provide the insurance for the swimmer. Crewe Flyers collect this fee on behalf of the Swim England. The national annual renewal occurs in January, meaning that all swimmers will have to renew their annual membership then.
Swimmer Age
For a swimmer to compete at a licensed 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).
Types of Swimming Competition County/ Regional/ National events
Swimmers ultimately aspire to test themselves against the best in the sport, so will seek to target entries into County, Regional, National standards and beyond, in their careers from the age of 9. County competitions can be entered from age 10 and Regional Competition from age 11 (age taken from the end of year in which the competition takes place). National events can be entered from the age of 12 years.
Club Championships
These are held on an annual basis and are usually known as Club Champs. Crewe Flyers runs these meets unlicensed so that all swimmers can take part, particularly those who are just beginning their swim club journey. These are the lowest level meets. They are just for the swimmers in our club to compete against each other. Club Champs are great fun and less daunting for young newly competitive swimmers as they will be familiar with the pool, officials and timekeepers. They will also know the other swimmers and have an opportunity to record legitimate times that can be used for entering other meets (Level 3) later on. We usually hold our Club Champs in September so that we can benchmark where swimmers are at for the start of the season. Medals and trophies from Club Champs will be awarded at the annual awards evening.
Junior Gala Series
These are events for younger aged swimmers, usually between the ages of 8 and 11 years. Points are awarded to swimmers for where they finish in each event over a number of rounds, with a top boy/girl being awarded in each age group at the end of the rounds. Events will usually be no longer than 25m or 50m; with the exception of the 100m Individual Medley (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle).
Open Meets
These are advertised by individual clubs and are licenced meets for anyone who is eligible to take part. Qualifying times vary per level of event, with some having no minimum time requirements. These events are individual races with the fastest swimmers in each age group gaining medals/ trophies.
Long Course or Short Course?
Details of what ‘course’ a meet is will be on the meet information pack – usually described as LC or SC. Short Course meets are swum in a 25m pool (same as Crewe Lifestyle Centre or Macclesfield Leisure Centre) and Long Course meets are swum in a 50m pool, which is Olympic length.
What are licensed meets?
Licensed meets are swimming galas that comply with a standard set of Swim England licensing requirements. All times achieved at licensed meets are official and get published on a rankings database. The level of the meet can be used to identify the purpose of the competition:
- Level 4 is for those beginning to enter individual competitions. These competitions are generally hosted by a local club, usually with upper limit/no ‘faster than’ times.
- Level 3 is again, for entry level swimmers. Entries generally have upper limit/no ‘faster than’ times. These can be short course or long course. Times achieved here can be used for entry to Level 1 meets, Regional and County championships.
- Level 2 is aimed at Regional and National SC qualifiers and swimmers who are close to qualification. They require minimum qualifying times to enter.
- Level 1 is the highest level of competitive swimming aimed at National qualifiers and swimmers close to National qualification. They also provide opportunity to achieve international qualifying times. These are always long course meets and will have quite tough minimum entry times. Please note: For level 1, 2 and 3 meets the swimmer needs to be registered with Swim England as ‘Club Compete’, previously known as Cat 2.
Qualifying times / upper limit times /cut off times:
A “qualifying time” is the time that the swimmer must have already achieved in order to enter an event at the competition. For Level 1 and 2 Competitions, times are normally based on ‘faster than’ times, achieved previously at a licenced meet. Upper limit/cut off times are times set by a competition organiser that a swimmer must be slower than to be able to swim at the competition. This normally applies for Level 3 Competitions. Qualifying times or cut off times will be included in the competition meet pack so please look out for these and check before submitting an entry for your swimmer(s).
Swimmers’ entry times:
Swimmer’s times are recorded on the National Swimming Database (simply enter the swimmer surname here https://www.swimmingresults.org/individualbest/ to locate their times). These times are updated after each competition and form the basis of qualification entry for future events. The database is a great tool to take a look at. It records every swim and provides graphs and other useful performance data. Event rankings, whether by Club, County, Regional or National can also be accessed on this site.
Which times can be used?
The meet pack for each competition usually states whether (1) times need to have been achieved at licensed meet and appear on rankings and (2) how recently the times need to have been swum. If this is ever unclear, please ask your coach or contact our competition secretary. As a general rule, Most L3, L4, and friendly competitions will accept ‘no times’ if they don’t appear on the rankings database. L1, L2, County, Regional, and National events will always require times to have been achieved at licensed competitions and appear on the rankings database. Times for County and Regional event need to be swum in the relevant qualifying period even if they have been achieved beforehand. National qualification may be based on rankings or times depending on the competition.
Time Conversions
This is particularly relevant when you wish to enter a Long Course meet but only have Short Course times. At the majority of swim meets, time conversions are permitted from Short Course to Long Course or vice versa. Swim England now provide a conversion from short course to long course and vice versa here https://www.swimmingresults.org/individualbest/ as part of each swimmer’s record. The website, https://www.pullbuoy.co.uk/times/ has a tool which can convert these times, although Pullbuoy sometimes differs by more than a few 100ths of a sec and it is only a guide.
Entering Swimming Competitions
You will be emailed the details of the meets Crewe Flyers plans to attend. Please read through all documents (not just the entry form). Ensure you check age groups, what events your child can enter, and when they are taking place. Check the qualifying/cut-off times for the competition and talk to their coach if you are unsure or want advice on what to enter. Once you have decided what to enter you need to follow the emailed instructions for how to enter. Currently, Crewe Flyers is using Google Forms to collect any gala entries which are not advertised through Swimming Events. For any galas advertised through Swimming Events, an account will need to be set up at https://swimming.events/. You will need to make payment to the club as soon as you have submitted the entry and certainly by the deadline, as we are unable to submit the entry file unless we have received all monies. Please make sure you pay particular attention to the refence needed as this enables our treasurer to identify your payment. Please note that as standard, any gala fees need to include a £2.50 admin fee, unless you have entered through Swimming Events.
What happens to my entries?
When all of the entries for the club are collated, the Competition Secretary will submit the whole batch to the host club, or if it is our own meet, will submit them to the meet software. All competitions will be limited by space and therefore, there is a possibility that not all entries/ events will be accepted into the competitions. The host Club will process all of the entries from visiting Clubs and populate the meet. Priority is not given to a host clubs’ swimmers. All Meets are run under Licence and so must be fair in apportioning races based on qualification criteria. Therefore, generally, if the event has minimum QTs, then if it is oversubscribed, the slower qualifiers will be scratched and if the event has upper limits/no ‘faster than’ QTs, then the fastest swimmers would be scratched. The host Club will send out a list of Accepted Entries to the visiting Clubs who will then distribute to its members. This will list which events your swimmer has been accepted for and which ones have been scratched due to being full. A briefing email will then be sent to the swimmers detailing protocol and schedule for the day/ weekend. Programmes are sometimes on sale, though most now have online programmes for spectators. Most Open meets have access to live results. The programme will begin with the slowest swimmers first through to the fastest. Results will be calculated in age groups depending on the competition conditions and usually, medals will be given out to the top 3 in each age per event. Some events will have finals too, so the fastest 8/ 10 may get to compete in that too.
Team Competitions/League Galas
These are team events where the whole team competes against other clubs, gaining points for each race. Swimmers will be selected to swim certain events for the best possible team outcome. A list of selected swimmers will be communicated, via email for the event. These are usually fun, noisy and competitive events which we encourage parents to shout and support their team in! If you are selected to swim for the club, please make your best efforts to be available. Below is an example of the Team competitions we usually enter:
- National Swimming League (Arena) This competition is held over three rounds, usually on the 2nd Saturday of each month from October to December. Galas for Crewe Flyers are held at locations across the North West of England. Where possible, in order to reduce costs, the club ask the team to travel by car rather than coach, however we do encourage car sharing. The fastest swimmers will be selected even if this means younger swimmers swimming an age group higher. Swimmers are expected to attend even if they are only swimming in a relay as every swimmer makes a valuable contribution to the team effort!
The Day of Competition
Competitions are very long weekends, normally and swimmers will be required to stay with their team for most of the day. Crewe Flyers have volunteer Team Managers, who have had DBS and safeguarding checks, as well as a Team Manager Qualification. They will look after the swimmers on poolside throughout the day so the coaches are free to advise and coach the swimmers and observe the racing. It can be quite a task to manage and look after young people poolside and to ensure they don’t miss their races, therefore we ask all swimmers not to leave poolside without our knowledge. Parents are encouraged to stay and support their swimmers from the viewing area and should be available in case their swimmer becomes ill and needs to be removed from the poolside. Due to child safeguarding, parents are not allowed poolside during events. Crewe Flyers encourage swimmers to develop independence at meets communicating with Team Managers and Coaches regarding any queries. The main reason for entering these competitions is to put into practice what they have been working on during training, and to ultimately achieve qualifying times that will allow a swimmer entry into County, Regional and even National competitions. It also allows our coaches (and swimmers) to see progress and how they can improve further (entering a variety of these competitions will allow swimmers to see progress over time). Please remember, particularly as swimmers get older, PBs are harder to achieve, so swimmers shouldn’t be too hard on themselves if they are not achieving PBs in every race! There are a whole host of reasons why a swimmer may not perform well in a gala, including whether they are fuelled and hydrated properly; and if they have grown recently.
Support at Galas
Galas cannot run without volunteers and in order for a club to enter licensed meets, it is expected that each club will provide at least one official, sometimes more, depending on the number of swimmers attending, either a timekeeper, J1 or J2.
Time Keeper (14 yrs +) – You record the time the swimmer takes to complete the race using a stopwatch and record it on the heat sheets. If the meet is working with Automatic Officiating Equipment (AOE) ie electronics then there will also be a secondary ‘back-up’ button that you need to push when the swimmer completes the race. If the meet is using manual times the Chief Timekeeper will collect the time sheets for each event.
To become a timekeeper, you need to complete a short online learning session and then practical session at https://www.swimming.org/ios/course-information/swimming-technical-officials-timekeeping/
Judge 1 (16 yrs +) - as well as timekeeping, you are also expected to be responsible for looking at the swimmers turns and finishes. Don’t worry - you cannot disqualify a swimmer, all you do is report an infringement if you see it to the Referee or Chief Inspector of Turns. The only person who can disqualify a swimmer is the Referee. If you “think” you saw an infringement then you must give the swimmer the benefit of doubt. This part of J1 requires knowledge of the rules relating to the turn and finish for each stroke but this is where the mentoring will help since you will be attending meets and placed with more experienced officials who will ask you questions to establish where your knowledge is at, and explain what you should be looking for. To complete the J1 theory, please book at https://www.swimming.org/ios/course/9427
Crewe Flyers will happily reimburse training costs for courses once they are completed and a number of hours volunteered. Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in volunteering.