Times, time trials and timing explained

We are a competitive club constantly looking to measure the improvement in our swimmers and the main way this is achieved with a competitive club is through regular time trials at a range of distances in a range of strokes. We aim to make this as stress-free as we can but in time swimmers become very serious about these times and push themselves to greater success.

Clissold's system

Promotion through squads is by time. Swimmers are time-trialed in all four events over 50-metres and the four times are added together to give an 'aggregated time' that allocates the swimmer to an appropriate squad. This is a very effective method that defines the club ensuring that coaches teach all four strokes to the highest level and that swimmers learn and perfect each and every stroke to the highest level they can.

There are qualifying times for London which is a new ASA Region, Middlesex, which is our traditional region, then there are 2007 National Age Group Qualifying times, the 2007 National Qualifying Times and the 2007 British Championships Qualifying times.

The ASA also manages a scheme of badges and awards across all skill and speed levels to inspire and encourage young swimmers that are sponsored by a pre-sweetened breakfast cereal manufacturer which you can see here

BRITISH AGE GROUP POINTS SYSTEM 'BAGCATS':

AN INTRODUCTION - can be found here. A BAGCAT points calculator is available HERE. YOU CAN CALCULATE YOUR OWN POINTS TALLY HERE. Swimmers are also timed at the distances listed below and these are 'age sorted' into age, gender, county, club and national ranking system that can be interrogated by clicking HERE. (We have no idea how accurate this is or how regularly it is updated but it seems pretty swiftly done.)

the events are:

additional reading – supporting documents, online

Introduction to Long Term Athlete Development
National Plan for Swimming

swimline: click here for info on 'swimline'