With a bevy of in­ter­na­tion­al swim meets on the 2022 cal­en­dar, it will bode well for the Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASATT) to im­ple­ment a time­ly, fair, con­sis­tent and trans­par­ent se­lec­tion pol­i­cy for swim­mers to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go.

With re­spect to elite lev­el swim meets, the FI­NA points ta­ble pro­vides a fair and trans­par­ent mech­a­nism to nu­mer­i­cal­ly re­flect the qual­i­ty of a swim, and its prox­im­i­ty to be­ing World class.

FI­NA points ta­ble

“The FI­NA Points Ta­ble al­lows com­par­isons of re­sults among dif­fer­ent events. The FI­NA Point Scor­ing as­signs point val­ues to swim­ming per­for­mances, more points for world class per­for­mances typ­i­cal­ly 1,000 or more and few­er points for slow­er per­for­mances.”

The points are cal­cu­lat­ed us­ing a cu­bic curve. With the swim time (T) and the base time (B) in sec­onds the points (P) are cal­cu­lat­ed with the fol­low­ing for­mu­la: P = 1,000 *(B/T)3

The base times are de­fined every year, based on the lat­est World Record that was ap­proved by FI­NA. For short course (SCM) the base times are de­fined with the cut of date of Au­gust 31. For long course (LCM) the base times are de­fined at the end of the year (De­cem­ber 31) - fi­na.org.

FI­NA points should be used as our main met­ric for elite meet qual­i­fi­ca­tion but not the on­ly met­ric in recog­nis­ing per­for­mance. As an il­lus­tra­tion, in con­sid­er­a­tion of a na­tion­al award, a 50m back gold medal would have a greater weight­ing than a 50m fly fifth place fin­ish at the same Games, even if the fifth place has high­er FI­NA points.

Top TTO per­form­ers - FI­NA points sys­tem

These are Top Ten Swim­mer per­form­ers from Trinidad and To­ba­go us­ing the FI­NA Point Ta­ble. The best event for each ath­lete has been list­ed

1 Dy­lan Carter 50m but­ter­fly SC 21.98 FI­NA World SC 968 Points

2 Kael Yorke 100m but­ter­fly LC 54.09 Ju­nior Pan Am 766 Points

3 Zarek Wil­son 100m freestyle LC 51.38 Ju­nior Pan Am 761 Points

4 Cherelle Thomp­son 50m freestyle LC 25.95 ASATT Tri­als 758 points

5 Gra­ham Cha­toor 400m freestyle LC 4:01.39 Ju­nior Pan Am 757 points

6 Josi­ah Morales 50m freestyle LC 23.29 Flori­da Gold Coast 724 points

7 Chris­t­ian Awah 50m but­ter­fly SC 24.26 ASATT Tri­als 720 points

7 Nikoli Black­man 100m freestyle LC 52.32 Bar­ba­dos Na­tion­als 720 points

9 Gabriel By­noe 100m freestyle LC 52.72 T & T Na­tion­als 704 points

10 Aqeel Joseph 100m freestyle LC 52.99 Speedo Sec­tion­als 693 points

FI­NA points, there­fore, as­sign a score to each swim and as a met­ric that can be used the com­pare swims against dis­tances, strokes, and gen­der.

The need for se­lec­tion pol­i­cy

With World Long Course Cham­pi­onships in May, World Short Course in De­cem­ber, and Com­mon­wealth and World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships in Au­gust, by now the se­lec­tion pol­i­cy for these elite lev­el meets should be avail­able. There should be a clear cri­te­ri­on with dead­lines and pri­or­i­ty list­ing for se­lec­tion, so our lo­cal and for­eign based ath­letes can plan their pro­grammes and make nec­es­sary arrange­ments to make them­selves avail­able.

A sys­tem for as­sess­ing ath­lete fit­ness should al­so be in­clud­ed in the cri­te­ria es­pe­cial­ly for games that have one year qual­i­fi­ca­tion pe­ri­ods. These cri­te­ria should not nec­es­sar­i­ly be in a si­lo, but times which take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion pro­gres­sion to Paris 2024.

It should be a con­sis­tent, fair trans­par­ent process with the de­sired re­sult be­ing the best avail­able Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens, whether lo­cal­ly or for­eign based, to rep­re­sent the red, white, and black. Dur­ing the ac­tu­al team se­lec­tion process cri­te­ria must al­ready be known, and not man­u­fac­tured on the spot. This can give the im­pres­sion that now that the swim­mers' re­sults are now known, and the cri­te­ria es­tab­lished is to favour a par­tic­u­lar swim­mer.

It is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of ASATT to es­tab­lish a stan­dard and utilise its data­base to iden­ti­fy and no­ti­fy the ath­letes that can qual­i­fy for this short list. Ath­letes can now be giv­en the coach­ing and fi­nan­cial sup­port (if pos­si­ble) to im­prove this stan­dard to an A qual­i­fy­ing time.

FI­NA points for elite meet se­lec­tion

In a de­vel­op­ing coun­try where the prob­a­bil­i­ty of rank­ing first and sec­ond na­tion­al­ly and be­ing world class is slim. Lo­cal rank­ings should not be giv­en pref­er­ence for in­ter­na­tion­al meets. ASATT has used FI­NA points in the past to de­ter­mine qual­i­fi­ca­tion and to de­ter­mine awards. There needs to be though clear pol­i­cy on its use and its ap­pli­ca­tion.

Carter's 968 FI­NA-point swim at the World Short Course Cham­pi­onship in Dubai, earned him a sil­ver medal. A World class per­for­mance not on­ly by medal but his prox­im­i­ty to the World record. He is the sixth fastest ever in the event with the sixth high­est FI­NA points ever.

The FI­NA points sys­tem is the best avail­able gauge for us to as­sess our prox­im­i­ty to world class per­for­mances, and swim­mers with high­er FI­NA points (pro­vid­ed they have proven fit­ness) should be giv­en first pref­er­ence for se­lec­tion for elite meets.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion or club of which he is a stake­hold­er.