Swimming rules for beginners

The goal

Competitive swimming is a race against the clock and against other swimmers. In an individual race, the swimmer who reaches the finish wall first wins, as long as the swim was legal. Most youth meets also rank swimmers by their times, which means a swimmer can have a great day by beating a personal best even without finishing first.

That is one of the nicest things about the sport for beginners. Every swim produces a number, and a lower number than last time is progress that anyone in the family can see.

How a race works

1. Swimmers are placed in lanes, each separated by floating lane lines. Each swimmer stays in their own lane for the whole race.
2. An official starts the race with a signal. Swimmers usually dive in from a starting block, or start in the water for backstroke. Some youth meets let younger or newer swimmers start from the deck or in the water instead of the block, so ask your team.
3. Swimmers complete a set distance. Pools are built in standard lengths, and races are counted in lengths of the pool, so a longer race means more laps and more turns.
4. At the wall, swimmers touch to finish. Touchpads or timers record the time.

The pool length used for a meet varies. Common standard lengths are 25 yards, 25 meters and 50 meters, so times from different pool lengths are not directly comparable. Ask your team which pool a meet uses.

Strokes and events

There are four competitive strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. Races are also swum as the individual medley (all four strokes in one race) and as relays with four swimmers per team. Each has its own rules. See the strokes, IM, relays and events explained for the details.

What makes a swim legal

Each stroke has technique rules, and officials watch for them. In general terms:

• Swimmers must complete the full distance in their own lane.
• Swimmers must use the correct stroke for the event, including at turns and finishes.
• Some strokes require a two-hand touch at the wall. Others allow a one-hand touch.
• Swimmers may not walk or push off the bottom of the pool or pull on the lane line to help themselves. Details differ slightly by stroke and rule set.
• In a relay, a swimmer may not leave the block before the teammate in the water touches the wall (the exact wording of this rule varies slightly by rule set).

A swim that breaks a rule can be disqualified, often shortened to DQ. A DQ is not a punishment. It means the official saw something that did not match the rule book, and it is very common for new swimmers. Coaches treat it as a normal learning step. See swimming terms for new parents for more vocabulary.

Heats, seeding and results

When many swimmers enter the same event, they are split into heats. Swimmers are usually grouped by their entry times, so that swimmers of similar speed race each other. Events are also usually separated by age group and by girls and boys (or women and men), so a swimmer is ranked against others in the same group. In a timed-finals meet, the final results are ranked by time across all heats of that event, not just by who won each heat. That is why a swimmer who finishes second in an early heat can still place higher than the winner of a later heat.

Many meets are timed finals, meaning each swimmer swims an event once and the times decide the ranking. Larger meets may have preliminary rounds followed by finals for the fastest swimmers. Which format a meet uses, and how many swimmers advance, varies by meet.

Team scoring in dual meets

In some meets, two teams compete against each other and earn points for finishing places. Places are awarded points and the team with more total points wins the meet. Exact point values and the number of swimmers who may score vary by league, so ask your coach or read the meet information. Many youth meets, especially larger invitationals, focus on individual times and ribbons instead of team scores.

What parents will see at a meet

• Swimmers check in with a coach or at a marshaling area before their event.
• Officials walk the deck and watch strokes and turns.
• Timers stand at the end of each lane in some meets, and electronic touchpads record times in others.
• Results are posted on a wall, printed on heat sheets or shown in an app or website, depending on the meet.

The biggest practical tip is to expect a lot of waiting. A swimmer may race for under a minute and wait an hour for the next event. Pack accordingly, and see how to prepare for swimming season.