Resources

“On Track Times”

“On Track Times”

The purpose of the “On Track Times” is to help identify a pool of athletes that Swimming Canada can work with in order to increase the probability that it is directing resources to those athletes who have the highest probability of positively impacting Canada’s international senior swimming results.

How the Tracking Times Were Determined:

Swimming Canada introduced On Track times in 2013 as a tool to better identify developing swimmers. Performance data from international competitions and average progression rates of Canadian age group swimmers were used to develop a series of three tracks for each Olympic event. The three tracks were meant to capture everyone from early to late developers who had the potential to represent Canada internationally.

Since the spring of 2014, Swimming Canada has had the opportunity to work closely with a sports analytics group established by Canadian Tire Financial Services in collaboration with Own The Podium. As a result, Swimming Canada has gained access to a number of valuable resources and tools to further enhance the On Track times tool. The analysts worked with more than two million sets of results from world-class athletes to help provide insight into their career progression.

Version 2 of On Track Times was introduced in 2017 and continued to act as a tool to help identify developing swimmers who are tracking towards producing world-class swimming performances. The same basic principles from the original On Track times remained.

While version 2 of On Track Times were set for the four year quadrennial leading into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the newest versions of the On Track Times will be published in the year following each long course World Championships and incorporate the latest World Aquatics A standards. By utilizing the World Aquatics A standards as the final On Track time, it will provide a more seamless pathway from initial athlete identification to the senior team qualification.

The latest version of On Track Times has incorporated the most current evidence that has been developed through the data analytics work of Swimming Canada and Canadian Tire Sports Analytics. This updated system incorporates many key improvements that will better identify athletes who have the potential of representing Canada on the international stage.

Resources
Name Resource
On Track Times 2024 On-Track-Times-2024.pdf