Jargon

PB: – Personal Best Time
Splits: – The time at each turn i.e. 25m for a 4 x 25m relay swim
Free: – Freestyle or front crawl
Breast: – Breaststroke
Back: – Backstroke
Fly: – Butterfly
IM: – Individual Medley (Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Front crawl)
QT – qualifying times for entry into an event

Distances: – These are 100m I.M (25m of each stroke in the above order) 200m I.M (50m of each stroke in the above order) or 400m I.M (100m of each stroke in the above order).

Medley Relay – The order for a medley relay takes into account the fact that the swimmer is unable to perform a dive on the backstroke takeover therefore the medley relay starts with the Backstroke leg and continues Breaststroke, Butterfly, and Freestyle.

HDW: – Heat declared winner – this means there aren’t any finals for this event. Every swimmer will swim in the heats and awards will be made to the fastest swimmers in the group -usually the top 6 in the age group.

Long Course: – Swims in a 50m pool are called long course.

Short Course: – Swims in a 25m pool are called short course and are faster than those swum in a 50m, this is because there are more turns in a 25m pool which generate speed from pushing of from the wall.

Lane order: – This is decided from the entrance times in each heat. If the gala promoter has decided to spear head each heat the fastest swimmer in the heat will be in lane 3, second fastest lane 4, third fastest lane 2, fourth fastest lane 5, fifth fastest lane 1 and sixth fastest lane 6. If there is a final for a gala then the heats are not usually spear headed and will be swum in programme order from lane 1 to 6.

Signing in – Signing in sheets are out at the start of a gala for the swimmers to highlight their names in each race they are competing in. The gala promoter then uses the information on the signing in sheets to create the heat sheets for each race. If you don’t sign in you can’t swim.