Gala Glossary

Simply, this refers to the length of pool. Short course refers to 25m pools and long course to 50m pools.

The two are not equivalent and when comparing times, conversion factors need to be applied.

Most local galas will require the swimmers to swim each event only once. All times swam in heats will be collated and grouped by age-group to determine the rankings of the swimmers and make awards based on that. Some competitions may have a mixture of events decided in finals and events that are heat-declared, usually longer races.

The word open can mean a few things in swimming so some context with it is needed. It can be used to describe a competition being open to other clubs rather than being invitation only, e.g. “open meet”. It can also refer to age limitations, or lack of them, e.g. “open age”. It can also refer to gender categories, where there is often an “open/male” category and separate female category. It is possible to have an open gender category separate from male but a convention is emerging to merge this with male.

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Most galas will have entry requirements based on swimmer ability to ensure competitors are at the right level for the intended standard. These are in the form of qualifying times that a swimmer must have achieved or not achieved in a defined window preceding the competition. Many local galas actually exclude the fastest swimmers and have upper qualifying times – times that the swimmer must not have swam faster than. This gives less experienced swimmers chance to take part and to compete for medals. Lower qualifying times are times that a swimmer must have already achieved to show they are of a high enough standard. These competitions are usually intended as qualifying opportunities for higher level championship events such as county and regional championships. Occasionally, some galas will have both upper and lower qualifying times.

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The swimming world governing body was known as FINA but has changed name to World Aquatics (WA). They have a system of rating swims by using the world record as a standard. The world record is set at 1000 points and swims times are scored relative to that. No account is taken of swimmer age, only the time is rated. This allows different events to be compared and can be used for setting targets. Most gala results will give times and also WA points. See here for technical details.

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This signifies para-swimming events. Para swimmers have disabilities assigned to distinct classes which reflect the different speed levels achievable with various disabilities. Times are compared to standard points tables per class, much like WA points, and event placings are decided on points scored, rather than absolute times. Standard times are based on the fastest times over the previous two years, rather than world records.

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N&D stands for Northumberland and Durham which is the county-level administration for swimming in the North East. "N&D's" is the local term for the county championships held annually in February.

N&D PP (performance pathway) is the name given to county-level extended training programme for higher-achieving swimmers at all N&D area clubs. Details here.

Slightly confusingly, N&D PP SC (swimming club) acts as a club at high-level competitions. Membership is voluntary and some N&D-area clubs have elected not to participate in this project. BOSSS are a part of N&D PP SC.

NER stands for North East Region and is the Swim England region that sits above the Northumberland & Durham and Yorkshire county administrative areas. Sometimes known as SENER (Swim England....)

NER is mostly used in reference to the two regional championships held annually by the North East Region, i.e. "long-course NER's" and "short-course NER's".

Rankings is a term used for the national online database of competition results, www.swimmingresults.org. Since around 2000, all swims at licensed swim meets in Britain have been recorded in one database which serve as a record of all swims for every swimmer. This allows anyone to compile lists showing ranks of swims at specified levels, ages, gender, even within a club.

"Must have a time recorded on rankings" is a phrase often used to state that in order to enter a competition, only a time that has been recorded as an official time in the rankings database can be used to show the swimmer meets qualification time requirements.

This is as it sounds, groups of ages so that young swimmers are competing against swimmers of similar physical ability. Gala hosts will decide how age is decided which will be either age on one of the days of the gala, or age at 31st December of that year. Age at end of the year groups swimmers by birth year rather than specific age and this is how all championship-level competitions work.

There can be groups of more than one year such as 9-10 years, or 14 & under. Check the competition's conditions for how the age groups are described.

There may be terms such as "youth" or "junior". There is no unique definition of which ages these include, so always check the details.

There are four levels of licensed competition, each with a set of requirements for events, equipment and officiating.

Most local inter-club galas are at level 3 , times set here can be used for qualification to county and regional championships. See GALA GUIDE for more details.

Regular seeding of swim heats places swimmers of similar times together. Heats run from slowest to fastest based on submitted entry times. The order of filling lanes within a heat places the fastest entry times in the centre lanes, with the lower lane number filled first. For a six-lane pool, the order of filling (fastest to slowest) is lane 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6. In an 8-lane pool, lane 4 is the first filled with the fastest seed within the heat, then 5, 3, 6, 2, 7, 1 then 8.

Cycle-seeding is something that happens at higher-standard galas. For 200m events and below, the swimmers placed in the last 3 (fastest) heats are assigned lanes in a different way. The fastest swimmers are prioritised for centre lanes, considered more desirable, across the last 3 heats. In an 8 or 10-lane pool, the fastest seed will get lane 4 in the last heat. The second-fastest seed will get lane 4 in the second-to-last heat, and the third-fastest seed gets lane 4 in the third-to-last heat. The fourth, fifth and sixth seeds then get lane 5 in the last, second-to-last and third-to last heats respectively. This goes on placing from the centre outwards until all 24 or 30 swimmers are placed.

For 400m+ events, only the last two heats are "cycle-seeded".

Finals are always seeded from the centre lanes outwards.

This is a fun addition to some galas which usually include cash prizes rather than medals. This is a quick-fire knock-out competition of 50m races swam one after another  to decide the winner. The stroke for each leg to be swum is drawn at random just before the start of each race, so luck can be a factor!

All lanes will be occupied in the first leg and quite simply the swimmer finishing last is eliminated while the others return to the start for the next leg within a specified time. This continues until two swimmers remain who swim-off to decide the winner.

The format suits swimmers competent in all four strokes and entry is usually by invitation to the highest finishers in the 200m individual medley event.

Cash prizes are often given to all competitors but the further they go, the greater the prize!