What's a BAGCAT ?

Rather than specialise in one event, the Amateur Swimming
Association (ASA) believes that each swimmer should compete in a
number of events to help develop swimming potential. In the UK,
events are divided into categories - the British Age Group
Categories or BAGCats for short.
When a swimmer competes in a BAGCat event, their time is converted into points
that take into account a swimmer's age and sex. A swimmer can take part in as
many events in a season as they choose to, but only their highest points score in
each swimming category will count towards their final BAGCat total.
BAGCATs
The Age Groups are now run using the new (British Age Group) BAG points system.
All club members that enter Age Groups should have received the ASA Age Group
Swimming leaflet, which explains the system and reasons behind it; you can
download a copy at
http://www.britishswimming.org/sports/swimming/agegroup/clubclass_worldclass02.pdf
Or see Paul Elwood for a copy.
The following may help:
- The overall position of a swimmer is the sum of the BEST point score in each of
the 5 categories (50m events, 100m, FORM, Distance and IM (100IM for 9-11year
olds and 200-400IM for older swimmers). It is therefore advisable to enter every
category in the Age Groups if you can achieve the qualifying times. (N.B boys 12
and below and girls 11 and below don’t swim the 100m individual events)
- FORM stroke is one of the three strokes having specific requirements (ie. 200M
Breaststroke, Butterfly or Backstroke). Freestyle is not a FORM stroke but is
used for distance events, such as 200/400/800 or 1500m depending on the
swimmers age and sex.
- The points are derived from the swimmers time, stroke, age and correction
factors. As each stroke correction factor is different, it may not be obvious which
is the swimmers best stroke!
- To help estimate points for a swimmers time there is a free downloadable
'calculator' from Sportsystems (see link below).