FINA Sets The Difficulty
FINA points estimate how hard a time is to achieve in that event, gender and pool length. Faster, rarer swims carry more weight.
Performance Points
One score for how impressive a swim was.
PP combines race difficulty with personal performance, so a result can be compared across strokes, distances, ages and ability levels.
Personal Context Matters
The swimmer is also compared with their sign-up time or recent level. A big improvement is rewarded, while a slower swim is discounted.
25 Is The Baseline
If there is no comparison time, Streamline awards 25 PP. That gives first-time swims a simple neutral starting point.
Why It Works
A world-class swimmer can score high PP without setting a personal best, because performing near that level is already exceptional. A young swimmer may improve by a lot but still earn modest PP if the FINA value is low, because big drops are more expected early in development.
The aim is balance: standout swims should surface whether the athlete is elite, developing, experienced, or racing an event for the first time.
The Formula
PP = ((FINA x FINA / 2) x performance curve) / 1000
The comparison value is result time divided by seed time, minus 100%. Negative means the swimmer improved. Streamline uses a sigmoid curve so very large improvements help, but do not explode the score.
performance curve = 1 / (1 + e ^ -curveInput)
If the swimmer is slower, curveInput is harsher. If the swimmer is faster, the curve rewards the drop. Streamline rounds PP to two decimals.
For Swimmers
PP helps you spot the races that were genuinely special, not just the races with the fastest raw times. It is especially useful when comparing different events.
For Clubs
Average and median PP over a season can show development speed. A club with consistently high PP is producing swims that outperform expectations.
Explore PP In Practice
Swimmer and club pages use PP to show progress, top performances and yearly trends.