So What is Level X Racing?
Level X Racing is a club time trial held in training with results being submitted to Swim England’s Rankings database. It is a fun opportunity for swimmers to practice some racing skills in the absence of competitions due to COVID-19.
We will try to make it as similar as possible to a mini gala whilst observing social distancing and covid-19 safe procedures. Basically time trails with officials.
Swim England will publish leaderboards at designated times throughout the racing period to celebrate success.
Who is it for?
All club members will take part in our Level X Racing. The races will be run within each groups normal training sessions, and all swimmers should take part in their usual training bubbles with social distancing maintained throughout.
When will it take place?
It was planned to run in two Series –Series 1 from 23October –31 December 2020 and then Series 2 is proposed to run from 4 January –9 March‘21 Due to the second lockdown we are awaiting further details of when Swim England plan to re open the series.
We are hoping to at least practise before Christmas and hopefully run the series in January 2021.
Basically we will hold these races over all training sessions during a set week.
What events will there be?
Clubs can decide which distance and stroke to run based on the coach’s assessment of the swimmers’ fitness. For Series 1, this would be all strokes in 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m distances as per the Level X Racing Schedule. Our Club will start with 50m and 100m events only.
Age Groups
Ages shall be determined as at midnight on 31 December of the year of the time trial. There are no formal age groups for Level X Racing. It will however, be possible to filter by age group on Swim England Rankings. For this purpose, the age groups are 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 and Open.
Masters rankings will be filterable by standard Masters age groupings.
A club can run as many Level X Racing sessions as it chooses to.
Spectators
We are not sure yet and will depend on guidance from Swim England and the current tier restrictions at the time.
Officials
To run a Level X Racing session, a club requires two officials who are at least a qualified J1 or higher to manage the session. We have 3 J1s, Vicky, Suzanna and Sheila.
There is no requirement for a qualified referee. Clubs also need one time keeper per racing lane. There is no requirement for the timekeepers to be qualified but they must be at least 14 years old and a member of Swim England (any Category). More information is available in the Level X Racing Officials document.
Timekeepers
One Swim England Member of any category shall be appointed per lane to act as timekeeper for that lane. Timekeepers shall record the name, distance, stroke and time recorded for each swimmer on paper. The times must not be collected between races. Timekeepers should inform the technical officials if their watch failed to start when the starting signal was given, and if they did not stop the watch when the swimmer touched at the finish.
We will have one chief timekeeper for backup times.
Rules
Swimmers should attempt to participate in their races in accordance with Swim England Technical Rules. Disqualifications for infractions of the technical rules should only be made if the infraction committed provides the swimmer with an unfair advantage. If a swimmer is slowed by their infraction, advice may be given by a coach to help the swimmer improve.
Results
As part of a Level X Racing session, swimmers may be timed at other distances, but only Swim England-sanctioned Level X distances will be placed on rankings (this does not include any 25m events).
The results will be published on a Level X Racing drop down in Rankings. Masters and Para-Swimming will each have a Level X drop down in their respective rankings tabs.