British Swimming and the Home Nations would like to provide further detail around the inaugural ‘Festival of Swimming’ – our restart to racing programme, scheduled for the end of the 2020-21 season.
The Festival will be a network of more than a dozen independently-licensed/accredited meets, run with a long-course, heat-declared-winner format and hosted by the Swim England regions, Scottish Swimming districts and Swim Wales zones. The nationwide event will start from 16th July and run through to early August – with date ranges across specific areas outlined below.
The purpose and desire of the Festival of Swimming is to involve as many athletes as possible, maximising this opportunity of a return to racing. For that reason, swimmers will be limited to entering one meet only, and we will expect entrants, where possible, to race at their nearest venue. Para-swimming events will be included in as many meets as practical.
Each meet will be organised and structured in line with the prevailing local COVID restrictions and facility availability, meaning the duration of each standalone competition and the programme of events within each competition may vary.
The times recorded at each meet will be aggregated to produce an ongoing, consolidated British/Home Nations leaderboard in the following six age bandings (with age determined at 31st December 2021): 13 years; 14 years; 15 years; 16 years; 17 years; and 18 years and over. These leaderboards will be run across 100m, 200m and 400m races only, although organisers will have the flexibility to offer other events, should they choose.
Para-swimming leaderboards for the same 100m, 200m and 400m-focused events will be produced on a multi-classification basis.
Venues and specific dates for the Festival of Swimming will be announced shortly, alongside detailed entry information. Swim England have confirmed that the date range for events in the Festival taking place across the English regions will be between 24th July - 8th August. In the Scottish Swimming districts, events will take place from 16th - 18th July, while Swim Wales have confirmed that meets in Wales are likely to run over three days and will be scheduled between 7th - 9th August.