Gala entries and meet administration

Gala administration is one of the biggest time drains for club volunteers: reading the meet pack, working out who is eligible, collecting entries and fees, building the entry file, chasing withdrawals and updating times afterwards. Olympus Swim takes a meet from its entry window to updated personal bests in one place, so the meet secretary is not rebuilding the same information in three systems.

From meet pack to entry file

1. Set up the meet. Add the gala with its events, qualifying times, entry window and the squads it is open to.
2. Let eligibility do the filtering. Age group is a hard gate, so parents only ever see the events their swimmer is eligible for. Nobody has to cross-check a spreadsheet of birthdays against the age-up date.
3. Take entries. Parents see open galas in the parent portal, with dates, venue, entry fees and the closing date, and enter within the window the club has set.
4. Close and export. When the window closes, the meet secretary closes entries and produces a Hy-Tek compatible entry file for the host club.

Read more: Hy-Tek meet files explained and the gala entry checklist for meet secretaries.

After the meet: personal bests that update themselves

Import the results file after the meet and each swimmer's personal bests update automatically. Short course and long course bests are tracked separately, because the two pool lengths are not directly comparable. A swimmer's historic times can be loaded quickly from a rankings PDF, so the club does not start from a blank record.

Coaches can filter personal bests by event, for example every swimmer's 50m freestyle, which is the starting point for picking relay teams and league squads.

What is in development

Two integrations are in development and are not live yet. The first pulls times directly from Swim England's own rankings data, so personal bests update without any file at all. The second adds SportSystems meet entries, used by many county and regional meets, alongside Hy-Tek. Until they land, SportSystems meets are entered outside the platform. We will not quote a date for either until it is live.

The right access for the meet secretary

A meet secretary sees what the job needs: swimmers, personal bests, galas and entries. Invoices are visible read-only. Medical and welfare records are not part of the role and are not shown.

For parents

Galas are where many families feel lost: the jargon, the deadlines, the duty rota. The parent portal shows which events a swimmer has been entered for, the entry deadline and any qualifying times. For families new to competition, we have written a parent's guide to the first gala, a UK swimming glossary and what gala duty involves.

Read next: about Olympus Swim.

Common questions

Does Olympus Swim work with Hy-Tek? Yes. It produces a Hy-Tek compatible entry file for the host club and imports results after the meet to update personal bests.

Does it support SportSystems meets? SportSystems meet entries are in development and not yet live. Until then, those entries are made outside the platform.

Do personal bests update automatically? Yes, when the results file is imported after a meet. Short course and long course bests are kept separately.

Can we open a gala to some squads only? Yes. Each gala can be limited to the squads the club chooses, and parents only see events their swimmer is eligible for.

Can the meet secretary see medical records? No. The meet secretary role covers swimmers, personal bests and galas, not medical or welfare information.