Point Scores & Handicaps Explained

Here is how the point score for the season is tallied.

A race consists of a minimum of 3 swimmers, with “time trial” swimmers NOT being included in a race as a “swimmer” for the sake of point score purposes.

A Time Trial (the first race in the season for the stroke and distance for a swimmer) gains the swimmer 1 point.

From this Time Trial, you gain a handicap time, and once you are swimming off this handicap, then the race points are as follows.

15m, 25m, 50mB and Senior Swimmers

Points are awarded with the amount of points for a race consisting of 5 or 4 swimmers who have a handicap time being:

1st Place – 4 points
2nd Place – 3 points
3rd Place – 2 points
4th Place – 1 point
5th Place – 1 point

If a race consists of 3 swimmers who have a handicap time the points are:

1st Place – 3 points
2nd Place – 2 points
3rd Place – 1 point

If there are less than 3 swimmers in a race, all swimmers get 1 point.

You also may be in a race with between 4 or 5 swimmers, but if one of them is doing a time trial, then the points will reflect the actual handicap timed racers – and the time trial swimmers will all get 1 point.

For 15m Swimmers, as they all go on GO, their place is determined not on their actual finishing time but the time compared to their best (handicap) time and the swimmer who has improved their time the most in that race is awarded first place, and so on, depending on the swimmers in the race and the times they have swum.

A Grade

Time Trials are the same for A Grade, however they have a different point score from 15m, 25m, 50mB and Senior Swimmers.

Regardless of how many swimmers in the race, once they have a handicap time the point score is:

1st Place – 4 points
2nd Place – 3 points
3rd Place – 2 points
4th & 5th place – 1 Point

This is because A Grade swimmers have less registered swimmers per race throughout the season and they also have 2 lots of time trials as in each stroke as they need to do a time trial for both 50m and 100m distances. This allows their point score to reflect their participation and ensure fairness when perpetual trophies are being awarded at the completion of the season.

Fairness of Races/Points

When setting up for the races for the week, we spend a bit of time to try and ensure that all races have at least 4 or 5 swimmers in each race where possible. However, when swimmers pull out at the last minute, or enter and then do not show up for races, it may be the case that there is less than 3 swimmers per race. We encourage everyone to swim all races that they have entered for, or withdraw prior to the online race entry cut off at 11am on Saturday to make it fair for other swimmers in the point score.

Handicaps

Handicaps are set at the time trial based on your time for the stroke and distance. These handicaps are adjusted when the following happens:

1. Junior Swimmers – your handicap is lowered by 2 seconds from your winning time when you come 1st in a race.
2. Senior Swimmers – your handicap is lowered by 1 second from your winning time when you come 1st in a race.
3. If you have not won a race in 3 weeks, we manually adjust your handicap based on your average time in the last 3-4 weeks

End of Year & Point Score Trophies

Freestyle overall, 15m, 25m, 50B, A Grade and Snr
Breaststroke overall
Backstroke overall
Butterfly overall
Medley Overall
Junior Handicap Long Distance
Senior Handicap Long Distance

Trophies/prizes are also weighted based on overall point score across all strokes.