ISL Season 4: Rule Improvements (Part 2)

Continuing from the League’s previous announcement about the introduction of PRO vs. Semi-PRO categories, and the increase in the Total Money Pool available for athletes in Season 4, we are pleased to announce a further four changes and improvements to Season 4:

1) Introduction of ‘Super Skins’

Since Season 1, Skins events have been a main feature of ISL matches, allowing for a climatic finale and rewarding swimmers who possess an exceptional combination of speed and endurance.

In Season 4, the traditional Skins event will be moved to become the last events of Day 1. In its place, a new event ‘Super Skins’ for both men and women will be introduced as the last events on Day 2.

‘Super Skins’ consists of four rounds of competition:

1. 4x50m medley relay (8 teams)
2. 3x50m medley relay (6 teams)
3. 2x50m medley relay (4 teams)
4. 50m showdown between the final two swimmers

In Round 1, each Club will field two teams to compete in a 4x50m medley relay. The bottom two relays are eliminated, and the Club which wins Round 1 can choose a stroke to eliminate.

In Round 2, the remaining 6 teams will compete in a 3x50m medley relay, subject to which stroke is eliminated in Round 1. As before, the bottom two relays are eliminated, and the Club which wins Round 2 can choose another stroke to eliminate.

In Round 3, the remaining 4 teams will compete in a 2x50m medley relay, subject to which strokes were eliminated in the previous Rounds. As before, the bottom two relays are eliminated, and the Club which wins Round 3 can choose another stroke to eliminate.

By Round 4, there will only be one stroke left, so the race becomes a showdown between the final members of the teams which make it to Round 4.

For clarity, as each Round progresses and strokes get eliminated, teams still competing need to remove one swimmer each Round. Furthermore, teams cannot ‘mix-and-match’ with other swimmers from their Club in between Rounds – they have to use swimmers that compose of their original teams in Round 1.

Rounds 1 and 2 will run on 5 minutes each, whereas Round 3 will run on 4 minutes.

After each Round, the winning team has 1 minute to decide which stroke to eliminate, which will be announced to all other teams still racing. After this, other teams will have 90 seconds to decide who will be swimming in the next round.

Each Round comes with points for each Club, as well as an expanded opportunity for swimmers who participate to win prize-money-points in each Round.

2) Adjustment of Jackpot Times

Since their introduction in Season 2, Jackpots have added excitement to the League and allowed swimmers and their teams to be rewarded for exceptional performances.

However, as the League has accumulated data from Seasons 2 and 3, it has become evident that the  probabilities for a Jackpot occurring based on the previously set Jackpot margins for each race are different.

As such, the League is working with its partner, Swiss Timing, to harmonise the probabilities for Jackpots across each race and adjust the margin times accordingly, to make the rule as fair as possible.

The exact Jackpot margins will be published in full at a later date, as this is currently a work-in-progress.

3) Teams will get penalised if they Jackpot themselves

This new rule is self-explanatory, and aims to increase match competitiveness.

Specifically, in the case that an athlete or relay squad jackpots their teammate(s), there is a penalty for the club of -2 points in an individual event or -4 points in a relay event.

4) Ties have been eliminated

Previously, when two (or more) swimmers in the same event finish with the same time, the points they earn for their placing would be split equally across the swimmers and teams.

Season 4 will eliminate such ties, and instead have an automatic tie-breaking system based on each swimmer’s event rating for that particular event. In this case, the swimmer with the lower event rating will win the tie, and points be awarded accordingly.

In the rare occasion that the tied swimmers have an equivalent event rating, then the winner will be the swimmer with the lower aggregated rating.

We hope that this will further encourage breakout performances and stretch swimmers outside their comfort zones in unfamiliar events.

The mechanism for calculating a swimmer’s aggregated rating has not changed, and a full explanation for it can be found on https://isl.global