County Championship Information

It is the time of year when we begin looking at who may have achieved qualifying times for the 2012 Wiltshire County Championships, so I thought that it might be worth providing a brief overview of the Championships for those who might be unfamiliar with the format. 

Firstly there are 4 sets of events as follows:

• Long Distance - which are 800m Freestyle for girls & 1500m Freestyle for boys, these are held in the 50m pool at Bath University.
• Sprints - held at the Milton Road pool in Swindon and raced over 1 length of that pool which is 36yds (qualifying times are 25m times) 
• Youths - held at the Link Centre and include 50m, 100m, 200m & 400m events for those aged 14 and above
• Bagcats - as for the Youth, but for swimmers aged 9-13 inclusive. There is an excellent overview of how swimmers achieve overall Bagcat points here 

In order to compete in any of these events swimmers need to have achieved a relevant qualifying time. Julia Airlie keeps a database of all our times, which I consult in order to work out who has qualified, or indeed who might be close to qualification and hence could do with swimming again to try and lower their time. Our open in January being an excellent opportunity for swimmers to gain qualifying times. 

The closing date for entries to the Long Distance & Sprint events is early in January, so I have already started to ask swimmers who have qualifying times for those events whether they want to enter. If you believe that you have a qualifying time, but have not received an email from me, then please let me know. You can find out more information about the counties, including the relevant qualifying times here. 

 Graham Brend