What is a B Time?

After the completion of my son's first Short Course season, the Long Course season started and as a result, our first Long Course swim meet (if you missed my earlier post about what Short Course & Long Course season means, click here).
In the meet announcement, it said that in order to qualify for the Long Course swim meet, the swimmer needed to have "3x B Times".  I remember thinking to myself "What is a B Time?"  I had no idea what they were. 😅

USA Swimming has various Time Standards and the most basic one you should note is their "Motivational Times" for different age groups.  As of writing this post, the current one is the 2017-2020 Age Group Motivational Times, so it has been around for a few years.
You could probably find various Time Standards from your local swim club's website &/or from your LSC (Local Swimming Committee) website (my blog post about how USA Swimming is structured into Zones & LSCs can be seen here).
But it is probably best to refer to the "official" USA Swimming website for the latest Time Standards.  The 2017-2020 Age Group Motivational Times can be found at:
https://www.usaswimming.org/docs/default-source/timesdocuments/time-standards/2020motivationaltimes-top16.pdf

When you first look at this file, it could be quite daunting as it has a series of events & times for different age groups - but you don't need to feel that way!

First, look at the header to see if you're looking for "Long Course Meters" (LCM) or "Short Course Yards" (SCY).  The Short Course Meters (SCM) Time Standards are also published, but I never had to previously refer to that page as I have never come across a SCM event here in the US.  (Not sure what LCM & SCY means? Refer to my earlier blog here).

The Girls times are shown on the left and the Boys times are shown on the right.
At the top column, you will see the Time Standard metrics listed as:

• AAAA (Super fast!)
• AAA
• AA
• A
• BB
• B (Good job!)

Then you would see the appropriate Time Standards for different age groups.  Obviously the older you get, the Time Standards become faster.

• 10 & Under (in swim meets, you will see this abbreviated as 10&U)
• 11-12
• 13-14
• 15-16
• 17-18

On a side note, "Age Group" swimming generally means 14 & under and "Senior" swimming is for 15 & over, especially in the context of swim meets.
So if a swim meet is called "Age Group Championships", it is for swimmers who are 14 & under.
When people talk about "aging up" in swimming, they generally refer to you transitioning from one age group to the next (e.g. swimmer ages up from 12 to 13 years, so his/her swim times are now compared against the 13-14 age group standards instead of the 11-12 age group standards).

So let's use the Short Course Yards (SCY) table for 10 & under boys as an example.
Let's suppose your son made the following best times in the below events during the Short Course season:

• 50 Free = 36.47
  This is faster than the B Time (38.09) but slower than BB (34.49).
  So your son has a "B Time" in this event.
• 100 Free = 1:23.81
  This is faster than the B Time (1:27.79) but slower than BB (1:18.79).
  So your son has a "B Time" in this event.
• 50 Breast = 50.35 
  This is faster than the B Time (52.09) but slower than BB (46.59).
  So your son has a "B Time" in this event.

So going back to my very first example where the swimmer needed 3x B Times to qualify for a Long Course swim meet, your son with the above 3x B Times would be able to fulfil such a requirement.

Now what if you do NOT know what is your child's best swim times?
The easiest way to find that out is from USA Swimming website → Times →  Individual Times Search (https://www.usaswimming.org/times/individual-times-search)
These are the official swim times from swim meets sanctioned by USA Swimming.

You would then:

1. Type your swimmer's first and last name
2. Choose "Show only the fastest by event" to only list the swimmer's Personal Best Time.
   If you wish, you can choose "Show all times" or "Show only fastest by event/age".
3. Choose the Competition Year (choose the current season if you just want to see this season's results only)
4. Then click "Search"

If there are multiple people with the same name, you will then need to choose the correct person based on the swim club &/or LSC code.  Once you have the results displayed on screen, you can print them out or even download it into an Excel format.  As this is an open and public site, it does mean you can search for swim times for other swimmers - even the really famous ones like Caeleb Dressel & Katie Ledecky 😃

If your swimmer becomes a more serious competitive swimmer, there are other Time Standards to strive for in order to compete in the bigger stage (I will eventually cover this topic as well!).  By that stage, these Motivational Time Standards would not mean much significance.  But in the early developmental stages, you and your swimmer could use this as a guide to track how they are doing .

One final comment on Time Standards - please do note it is called "Motivational" Time Standards.  It is not the be-all and end-all for your child's swimming journey.  It should only be used as a guide and a motivational tool for your swimmer to strive to improve (e.g. Wow! you are only 0.1 seconds off BB Time!  Keep up the great job!).

Until next time, keep on cheering for your swimmers! 🏊🏊🏊

*** Addendum (11/22/2020):  At the time of writing this post (August 23rd, 2020), the Motivational Time Standards being used was the 2017-20 version.  But in October 2020, USA Swimming has announced a new 2021-24 Motivational Time Standards which are available from HERE.  The times with an asterisk (*) next to it denotes that it has gotten faster since the previous Time Standard.