Dear Swimmers and Parents/Guardians
As you may be aware, Basildon & Phoenix Swimming Club was recently named as one of a small handful of clubs to pilot Level X Racing.
The purpose of the pilot is to:
- ensure that our swimmers are fully briefed as regards safety protocols for when Level X is fully launched
- ensure that the club –and by extension Swim England- is able to further refine its well-considered safety plans within a highly controlled environment
- test the rankings software that has been specifically written for Level X
For all competition hours, swimmers will complete a short warm up. They will then do, in the following order, the following events: 50m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke, 50m Backstroke and 50m Butterfly.
They will be safely marshalled around the pool, via a system that will be communicated well in advance of the session, following final discussions with the centre.
Swimmers will essentially compete in one of six heats of each event – their heat number will correspond with their normal position in the lane, and they will be socially distanced from other competitors throughout. There will be specific procedures in place to ensure that this happens.
As this is a pilot, the priority is on ensuring athlete safety, so we may not make it all the way through the programme in an hour – apologies in advance if this happens – the pilot is to ensure that future sessions go well. During the pilot we will be doing things like timing the gap between the end of one race and the start of the next – we’ll have an idea from this as to how much we can safely fit into a session.
The pilot enables the club to ensure that it is fully prepared for when Level X is rolled out nationally. When it does, we have arranged with the centre that we can extend our Saturday and Sunday evening hours to facilitate Level X opportunities for all squads. Once Level X is formally launched, it will be possible to participate in the full range of distances.
