About
How the numbers work
New to these? Start with How Flagline's numbers work, the plain-English introduction. This page is the full reference.
Flagline only has placings: who finished where in each heat, semi and final. There are no times. Every number on the site is built from those placings, and each one means the same thing on every page, share card and link preview.
Races, heats and entries
- Race
- A race is one individual division an athlete entered at a competition, counted once however many heats, semis and finals it took. Its result is the athlete's final placing in that division. Relays and team events are counted separately and always labelled.
- Heat
- A heat is a single round appearance: a heat, quarterfinal, semifinal or final. One race can be several heats. Form is worked out from heats; rivals and head-to-heads count the heats two athletes shared.
- Entry
- An entry is one division entered by an athlete or a team. A relay team is one entry, however many athletes are in it. Club numbers (medals, podium rate) count entries, so a relay medal counts once for the club.
Medals
- Gold
- A gold is first place in a division's final ranking. For athletes, golds count individual races only, unless the label says "incl. relays". For clubs, a relay gold counts once.
- Medal
- A medal is a top-3 place in a division's final ranking. For athletes, medals count individual races only, unless the label says "incl. relays".
- Podium rate
- Podium rate is the share of races that ended in a medal. For athletes it counts individual races. For clubs it counts every entry, including relay teams, and says so; a club discipline is only ranked once it has 10 entries.
Seasons
- Season
- Lifesaving seasons run from 1 October to 30 September (LSA's competition season) and are written 2025/26. Every tile says whether it is for one season or for the whole career.
- Career
- Career numbers add up every season Flagline has results for, from 2020/21 onwards.
- Which season is shown
- Unless you pick one, a page shows the season of the latest completed competition. While that season has fewer than 3 competitions, lists also show the season before it. An athlete or club that has not raced in it yet shows its latest season instead, and says which.
Form
- Season form
- Season form is the athlete's average finish percentile across every individual heat in the season, from 0 to 100. Winning every heat is 100; finishing last in every heat is 0. It shows once the athlete has 6 heats in the season, so a single good or bad heat can't decide it.
- Discipline form
- Discipline form is the average finish percentile over the athlete's last 6 heats in that discipline, across seasons. It shows once the athlete has 4 races in the discipline. The arrow compares this season's heats with last season's.
- Finish (0–100)
- The finish chart on an athlete's results uses each race's final placing against the number of entries in the division: 100 is a win and 0 is last. It is a different scale from form, which uses every heat.
Finals
- Made final
- Made final ("finals reached") counts only divisions that had rounds before the final. Divisions that went straight to a final are counted separately as straight finals and never raise the rate.
- Straight final
- A straight final is a division with no heats or semis: everyone who entered raced the final. They are shown separately so they don't inflate "made final".
Clubs
- Points
- Points are what a club earned at one competition. Clubs and teams are ranked by points, not medals. Every final place scores: 1st = 8 points, 2nd = 7, down to 8th = 1, summed across all the club's races. Places below 8th, heat and semi eliminations, and DSQ, DNF or DNS score nothing; a straight final is a final. A dead heat shares the place, so each tied entry gets that place's points. A relay or team scores once for its club, not once per member. Clubs level on points are split by countback: more 1sts, then more 2nds, and so on. When LiveHeats published an official pointscore for a competition, Flagline uses its points and order and labels them "official" ("49 pts · official"); otherwise the points are the 8→1 points worked out by Flagline. Adding a competition's points up over a region's or series' season makes the pointscore (see Pointscore). Medals (gold, silver, bronze) are shown for information and never decide a rank.
- Club rank
- Clubs are ranked by points: LiveHeats' official points where published, else 8 points for 1st in a final down to 1 for 8th (see Points). Ties go to countback: more 1sts, then 2nds, and so on. A club that scored no points is not ranked: it shows "no points", never "29th of 29".
- Athletes by age band
- A club's athletes in a band are those who raced a division in that band for the club in the season. Someone who raced in two bands (a U14 who also swam a U15 race) is in both, so the bands can add up to more than the club's athletes. A combined division spanning two bands (Junior with Open, say) doesn't say which band each athlete is in, so it counts only under mixed ages. The squad table uses this rule. The age pyramid and the depth table count each athlete once instead, at their season's age group (see Age group).
- Inter-Provincials
- At Inter-Provincials (and other representative events) athletes race for their province, not their club. Those results count for the athlete, but never towards a club's medals, rank or season totals.
- Pointscore
- The pointscore is a season or series table, not one competition: each club's points at every scored competition of a region (or series), added up ("5th in the WC pointscore"). A single competition is won on points; the pointscore is the table those points build. A club's place is its rank in its own region's table. Competitions that are not scored (Inter-Provincials, say) never add to it.
- Club form (discipline)
- Club form in a discipline is the average finish percentile of every heat the club's entries raced in it this season: 100 = won every heat, 0 = last in every heat. It is shown next to podium rate on the Strengths screen and uses the same finish scale as athlete form.
Club depth and pipeline
- National top 8 (depth)
- Depth counts a club's current members whose settled Flagline Rating is in the top 8 of its national rating pool now: one discipline group (or the overall rating), one band and one gender. Provisional ratings never count. An athlete in the top 8 of several pools counts once. Ratings are current, so depth reads "now" whichever season is on screen, and the depth table's SA # badge is the same national rank.
- Age group (club screens)
- On a club's age pyramid and depth table each athlete counts once, at the age group of the divisions they raced most for the club that season. Individual races decide it first, because relay teams often race an age up; combined divisions (U15 with U17, say) and unlabelled "Junior" divisions don't say which age, so they never decide it. On a tie the younger age wins. Someone who only raced combined or unlabelled divisions is shown in their band with the age not given. Divisions spanning two bands (Junior with Open) count for nobody.
- Rating trend
- The trend is the rating now (or at the season's end, for a past season) minus the rating going into the season's first competition (shown under it as "from …"), in the same pool: the sum of that season's rows on the athlete's rating log. "New" means first rated this season. Juniors are never framed negatively: a junior's fall shows as a neutral "–", and only gains are shown as a number, as on the athlete rating page.
- Rating ± (uncertainty)
- Every Flagline Rating carries an uncertainty. A new athlete's is wide and it narrows with every rated heat, so ±40 means the rating could reasonably be 40 higher or lower. Ratings stay provisional (and unranked) until 10 rated heats.
- New, returning, lapsed and back
- An athlete is in a club's season when they raced anything for it, relays included. New means their first season for the club; returning means they raced for it before; lapsed means they raced last season but not this one. "Back" is the share of last season's athletes who raced for the club again. Percentages need 5 athletes; below that only the counts show. A season in progress has no lapsed count and no rate yet.
- Nipper → Junior conversion
- Conversion follows the club's U13 and U14 athletes into the next season and counts those who raced U15 or older, for any club: changing club is not dropping out. Rates need 5 athletes; below that only the counts show. A pair into the season in progress is labelled "so far".
Athlete journey
- Milestones
- Milestones celebrate turning up: the first final, medal and gold; the 10th, 25th, 50th, 100th and 250th individual heat; the 5th, 10th, 25th and 50th competition; the longest run of consecutive seasons raced and of finals reached in a row; and the best-ever finish in each discipline. A heat counts when the athlete started it.
- Progression
- Progression follows every individual race that had rounds before the final: how many were raced in the heats (including round 1 and quarterfinals), the semis and the final, and the share that went through each step. A rate shows once 3 races reached that step. "Typical" is what an average athlete in the same heats would expect, from how many each heat sent through. Adults also see a neutral count of heats they didn't finish or start.
- At this point last season
- Like for like compares the season so far with last season up to the same day of the season (the date of the athlete's latest race this season). Season form needs 6 heats on each side; the Flagline Rating is the overall rating as it stood on each date.
- Relays
- Relay numbers count the relay and team races an athlete was a member of: team medals (1st to 3rd) and the legs and roles LiveHeats recorded, per relay event (a leg number only means something within one event, so Leg 1 of a Beach Relay and Leg 1 of a Taplin are never added together), and the teammates raced with most often, with the medals won together and the event raced together most. They are kept apart from individual numbers.
- Closest rivals
- Rivals are ranked by closeness: a win split near 50/50 counts most, and more shared heats count for less than an even split, so a close 7–4 ranks above a one-sided 15–52. A rival needs 5 shared heats to be ranked this way; the rest follow, most shared heats first.
Competitions
- Field strength
- Field strength is the average Flagline Rating the division's entrants had going into the competition, counting only settled (not provisional) ratings. It shows once 3 entrants have one. The percentile compares it with every division of the same age band, gender and discipline group Flagline has: 80 means the field was stronger than 80% of them. It shows only when at least 50% of the entrants are rated.
- Favourite
- The favourite is the entrant with the highest settled Flagline Rating before the competition started. It is model output, not a prediction anyone made: the favourite loses often, which is what makes racing worth watching. It needs 3 entrants with a settled rating. In junior divisions Flagline only says who won; a beaten junior favourite is never named.
- Upset
- An upset is an athlete finishing ahead of someone whose Flagline Rating was at least 150 points higher going into the competition, by final division placing. Both ratings must be settled, so a newcomer's low provisional rating never makes an upset, and the division needs 3 entrants with a settled rating. A competition recap lists the biggest upset in each division by a top-8 finisher. Only an athlete who finished above their own seed (their rank by rating going in) counts. In junior divisions only the winner's achievement is described and the athlete they beat is never named: a win from 3rd seed or lower is an upset ("won from 9th seed"); any other finish above seed is "Beat the odds" ("5th, rated 11th going in").
- Heat of death
- The heat of death is the heat whose entrants had the highest average settled Flagline Rating going in, among rounds with more than one heat. It needs 2 rated entrants in a heat and 3 across the round.
- Breakthrough
- A breakthrough is an athlete's first individual medal, a finish better than any before it, or (less headline) the first time they reached a final after heats. Only athletes with at least one earlier race on record count, because Flagline's results start in 2020/21.
- Rating riser
- Rating risers are the athletes whose overall Flagline Rating rose the most at the competition, counting only ratings that were settled before and after it.
- Ones to watch
- Before entries are published, ones to watch are the athletes with the highest settled overall Flagline Rating in each age band who raced in the competition's region in the past 12 months. It is model output based on ratings, not on who has entered.
Minimum samples
Most athletes race 10–12 heats a season, so a single heat can swing a number a long way. A number only shows once there is enough behind it; until then the tile says what it is waiting for.
| Number | Shows from |
|---|---|
| Season form | 6 heats in the season |
| Discipline form | 4 races in the discipline (form uses the last 6 heats) |
| Home page “In form” list | 8 heats in the season |
| Club top performers | 4 individual races in the season |
| Club discipline strengths (ranked first) | 10 entries in the discipline |
| Best and toughest venue | 3 heats at the venue |
| Flagline Rating (no longer provisional) | 10 rated heats |
| Progression rate (heats → semis → final) | 3 races at the step |
| Rivals ranked by closeness | 5 shared heats |
| A season shown on its own | 3 completed competitions (before that, the season before is shown too) |
Juniors are never shown a zero: their pages say what they have done, not what they haven't.
Performance score
The performance score adjusts a heat result for how big the field was, which round it was and how big the competition was, so a U11 heat of four and an SA Open final are no longer worth the same.
It feeds the Flagline Rating below. Season and discipline form still use the plain finish percentile described above.
score = 100 × finish percentile × round weight × competition weight
1. Finish percentile, adjusted for small heats
Winning a two-person heat says less than winning a heat of twelve. So we count the athletes you beat, and pretend there were 2 extra “average” finishers in every heat. Athletes who tie share the better place.
| Result | Percentile |
|---|---|
| Won a heat of 2 | 0.67 |
| Won a heat of 10 | 0.91 |
| Won a straight final of 40 | 0.98 |
| Last in a heat of 10 | 0.09 |
| Only finisher in the heat | 0.50 (tells us nothing) |
2. Round weight
Athletes often coast through heats to qualify, so a heat counts for less than a final.
| Round | Weight |
|---|---|
| Heat | 0.6 |
| Quarterfinal or semifinal | 0.8 |
| Final (including straight finals) | 1 |
3. Competition weight
Bigger competitions count for more. The level comes from the competition's name and series; when that gets one wrong, it is corrected by hand.
| Competition | Weight |
|---|---|
| Club / series | 1 |
| Provincial champs | 1.15 |
| SA champs | 1.3 |
| Inter-Provincials | 1.3 |
Scores run from 0 to about 130. A mid-field club heat is about 30; winning a big SA-champs final is about 127.
Flagline Rating
The Flagline Rating is a skill rating built from who beat whom in every individual heat. It is provisional until the athlete has 10 rated heats. The full explainer is How the Flagline Rating works.
- After every heat, athletes who beat higher-rated athletes gain more, and athletes who lose to lower-rated ones drop more. Each heat counts with the same round and competition weights as the performance score.
- Only individual events are rated, and athletes are only compared with athletes they could actually race: the same discipline group, squad and gender.
- The number shown is cautious: we are fairly sure the athlete is at least this good. A new athlete starts low and rises as the rating becomes more certain.
- Before it went on the site, the rating had to predict the order of every final in two held-out seasons better than last season's average finish did. It did.
More: How the Flagline Rating works · Guides to the sport · Rankings. Something look wrong? Tell us.