British Swimming and our Home Nations partners are pleased to publish planned dates for the 2022 domestic competition season, as we look to build on the success of the recent Festival of Swimming.
The qualification window for the 2022 British Summer Championships and the respective Home Nation Summer Meets will be open from Friday 11th March to Sunday 8th May 2022, inclusive.
After a turbulent 18 months that has caused major disruptions to the aquatics calendar, the Summer Championships and Summer Meets will provide valuable competition opportunities as the end-of-season event for thousands of swimmers across the country.
The competitions also form part of the broader Performance Pathway Strategy to support junior talent across Great Britain on their journey towards senior medal-winning performances at international level in the years ahead.
The dates of the qualification window are set annually by the cross-Home Nations and British Swimming Performance Implementation Group (PIG). After considering feedback from the competitive swimming community, we have decided to open and close the window slightly earlier, both to limit the crossover with the school examination period and to allow for a longer run-in and training block between the close of the window and into the domestic end-of-season meets.
Swimmers with academic commitments are now able to choose to race in the first few weeks of the qualification window and then focus on their studies.
Entry to the aforementioned summer meets will continue to be by invitation only, based on performances recorded in this designated qualification window. Entries will be accepted from competitors registered as members of a British Swimming Home Nation governing body (Swim England, Scottish Swimming or Swim Wales).
Provisional dates for the British Summer Championships are currently set for 23rd-28th July 2022, to avoid a direct clash with the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The swimming programme for Birmingham 2022 is scheduled from 29th July-3rd August.
The Home Nation Summer Meets are provisionally scheduled for 15th-17th July (Scotland), 3rd-7th August (Wales) and 5th-9th August (England). More details on each of these events - including venues - will be published in due course.
British Swimming will continue with the previously-established process of publishing weekly rankings lists once the qualification window has opened. A final draft rankings list will then be published once the window has closed, after 8th May.