Reading Swim Times

Swimming is unusual among sports in that almost everything is measured. A swimmer's progress is recorded in numbers to the hundredth of a second, and those numbers follow them from their first gala to their last. For a family new to the sport, learning to read those numbers is the difference between understanding a results sheet and staring at it blankly. This guide explains how swimming times work.

The basic format

A swimming time is written as minutes, seconds and hundredths, like 1:23.45. That example is one minute, twenty three seconds and forty five hundredths. For short events, the minutes are dropped: a 50 metre freestyle might be 32.18, meaning thirty two seconds and eighteen hundredths. The hundredths matter because races are often decided by them.

Every official time is recorded by electronic timing pads, backed up by hand timing. The pad time is the one that counts. A swimmer who touches the wall fractionally late loses hundredths, which is why turns and finishes are coached so carefully.

Short course and long course

The same swimmer will have different times depending on the pool. A short course pool is 25 metres long, so a 100 metre race involves three turns. A long course pool is 50 metres, so the same race has only one turn. Turns are faster than swimming, so short course times are usually quicker than long course times for the same event.

This matters when comparing times. A personal best set in a 25 metre pool is not directly comparable to a time from a 50 metre pool, and both are recorded separately. Results sheets always state the course, and a swimmer's records are kept apart for each.

Personal bests

A personal best, or PB, is a swimmer's fastest official time in an event, for a given course. It is the number that coaches and swimmers use to judge progress. A PB is only official if it was set in a licensed meet and recorded properly. Times swum in training or at an unlicensed gala are useful but are not PBs.

PBs do not fall in a straight line. A swimmer may go months without improving, then drop several seconds at once. Growth spurts, illness and training phases all affect times. A plateau is normal, and it is usually followed by a jump.

Splits

A split is the time for part of a race. In a 100 metre event, a swimmer might have a 50 metre split of 30.5 and a second 50 of 33.2, giving a total of 1:03.7. Splits show how a race was swum: whether a swimmer went out too fast and faded, or paced it evenly. Coaches use splits far more than the final time to understand a race, because they reveal where the speed was lost.

For longer events, splits are taken at every 50 metres and sometimes every 25. A swimmer who slows sharply in the last quarter of a race is usually lacking endurance, while one who speeds up at the end has more to give.

Qualifying times

Many galas require swimmers to have met a qualifying time to enter. A qualifying time is a standard set for an event and an age group, and a swimmer must have a recorded time at or faster than the standard. Some meets also set a slower entry time, so that a swimmer who is too fast is not eligible. These standards are published with the meet information.

Qualifying times are the reason recorded times matter so much. A swimmer without an official time in an event cannot enter it, no matter how fast they swim in training. This is why attending licensed galas, described in how a swimming gala works, is important for anyone with competitive ambitions.

Where times are recorded

Official times are collected into the national results system, and swimmers and parents can look them up. Over a season, these records show a swimmer's progress far more clearly than memory. It is worth checking them occasionally, both to celebrate improvements and to spot events that have not been swum for a while. The national governing body publishes results and ranking information at scottishswimming.com.

Reading a results sheet

A results sheet lists each swimmer with their time and placing, and sometimes their split and reaction time. Alongside the times are the codes: DQ for a disqualification, NS for a no show, WD for a withdrawal. Learning these few codes makes a sheet readable at a glance, and it stops a first time parent worrying about a DQ that is, in fact, routine. For swimmers moving up through the club system, covered in the club pathway, times are the shared language of the whole sport.

Reaction times and relay takeovers

Two numbers appear on some results that confuse newcomers. A reaction time is the fraction of a second between the starting signal and the swimmer leaving the block, and it is recorded at some meets. A relay takeover time measures how long before or after the incoming swimmer touches the wall the next swimmer leaves the block; leaving too early means disqualification. Both are small numbers with large consequences, and both are why starts and changeovers are coached so carefully.

Age group standards

Times are always read against an age group. A time that wins a ten year old's race would not qualify a fifteen year old for anything, because the standards rise with age. This is why a swimmer's progress is best judged against their own past times, and against the qualifying standards for their age, rather than against the swimmers around them in a single race.