Run a swimming gala,heats, lanes and a result per category
You set up the distances and the strokes, swimmers enter themselves, and you can see how full each event is. Times go in poolside, to a hundredth, and the result per age category is ready as soon as the last heat is out.
How a swimming gala works in PlayTour
Three things you notice about swimming straight away.
Times in, results out
A swim has no running score and no matches won. There is one figure per swimmer and the lowest wins. Two swimmers who touch on exactly the same time finish level and share the place, which is how the rules settle it as well.
- Ranked on the lowest time, to a hundredth of a second
- Equal times share the same place in the result
- Did not start, did not finish and disqualified stay apart
- A result per category alongside the overall one
Your events are ready to go
Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, the individual medley, open water and the two relays are all set up as disciplines. The distance is not part of them, which works out better than it sounds: the 50 free and the 400 free go up as two events, each with its own entry fee and its own start time.
- Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and the medley
- Open water as a discipline of its own
- Freestyle relay and medley relay, four swimmers to a squad
- Its own price, capacity and closing date per event
Open water is the exception
In a pool there is always a clock. In open water there need not be: with no touchpad, the place is decided by the first part of the body over the finish line and the judges record nothing but the order. That is a complete result, and in PlayTour it is a form of its own rather than a race with empty times in it.
- Against the clock, or on the order of finish
- With no touchpad, the first part of the body over the line counts
- The finish judges record only the order of arrival
- With no times, everybody without a place reads as retired
From programme to result
Entries, heats and results sit in the same system, so your gala is ready to share as soon as the events are in.
- 1
Put your events up
A stroke per event, the distance in the name, an entry fee, a number of places and a closing date. To split on age, make it two events and give each its own category.
- 2
Share the link and let the entries come in
Your gala is listed on PlayTour, or kept behind the link if it is an internal club meeting. Collecting entry fees online is coming soon; until then you take the money the way your club does now.
- 3
Set out the heats
A heat is one field rather than a row of matches. The start list is fixed before any times can go in, because the times are entered lane by lane in that order.
- 4
Time it and close it off
After each heat the times go in and the ranking is there. Anyone without a time gets a status instead of a figure and is placed behind the last finisher.
Swimming gala questions
Does the result say which pool it was swum in?+
No, and it is worth knowing. A time is only comparable with a time swum over the same course, which is why records for a 50m pool and a 25m pool are kept on separate lists. PlayTour records the time and has no field yet for the pool it was set in. Put the course length in the name of the meeting or the event for now.
Can I run heats with a final after them?+
Not as one whole. Every heat is a result of its own with its own ranking, so an event swum in five heats produces five results. Merging those heats into one classification, and sending the fastest eight through to a final, is not something we do today.
How is a relay scored?+
A relay squad is a single entrant made up of four swimmers. The squad enters as one and the time that counts is the squad’s. The splits of the individual swimmers belong on the official results sheet and are not recorded here.
What happens to a swimmer with no time?+
In a timed race the difference between did not start, did not finish and disqualified is kept in the result. One thing is still wrong there: a disqualified swimmer is given a place behind the last finisher, where the rules give them no place at all. In open water with no timing those cases collapse into one and everybody without a place reads as retired.
I am a swimmer, what is here for me?+
You find the galas listed on PlayTour and enter the event you want to swim with a free account. Paying online is coming soon; until then the organiser collects the entry fee itself.
Organising a swimming gala?
Tell us what you are putting on and how big it is. We will go through the rules and the timing and open swimming up, and you will hear from us when it is done.