There are specific methods used to score swim and dive competitions you can learn if you want to watch a competition and understand how the judges determine which athletes win or lose.
In swimming, there are championship meets, dual meets and conference meets. These competitions differ from one another based on how many teams are competing in the event and the amount of points earned.
Championship meets usually have eight, 10 or 12 teams competing, whereas conference meets have a minimum of six teams swimming. The number of competing teams ranges in number depending on the amount who were actually invited to the event. In a typical meet, whoever finishes their race first will receive nine points, second place will earn four points, third receives three, fourth gets two and fifth gains one.
In relay meets, the scoring is only slightly different because for first place a swimmer will receive 11 points, four points for second and two points for third.
For diving, they are scored on a range of 1 to 10 points. Most of the scoring is based on hitting a certain part of a dive to get a minimum score. It is also based on execution. There are different degrees of difficulty, and you take that score and multiply it by the score recorded on the judge’s scoring cards.
