That is why Dunedin’s Kiwi Swim Club is delighted to have secured an Olympic-level electronic starting device, thanks to a grant of just over $8000 from the New Zealand Community Trust.
Team manager Annika Bokor said that to race competitively, swimmers needed to be excellent at their starts.
"It is very much a quick reaction time."
The StartTime V acoustic start device consists of a large microphone, speaker and timer.
"So the referee says, ‘take your marks’, and then they press a button and there is a starting sound," she said.
Kiwi Swim Club athlete Kale Twist said that using the starting device during training and competitions allowed swimmers to become attuned to the sound.
"What you find when you get an actual starter instead of just, like, a whistle is that the rhythm changes."
After the instruction to "take your marks", there was a brief pause before the starter sounded.
Twist specialises in the 50-metre freestyle, where the difference between first and last can be just a fraction of a second.
Bokor said the start was "very, very important", particularly in short-distance sprints.
A swimmer could start "off the block" with a 15m dive.
"So 15m out of 50m, that is quite a significant proportion."
In addition to funding the starter device, the grant from the trust will contribute towards pool hire costs for local competitions.
It will also help cover costs for club swimmers attending national events.
The club has several athletes performing well both locally and nationally.
Twist represented New Zealand at the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii.
Swimmer Neo Salomonsson recently broke the New Zealand age record in the male 15-year short-course 100m butterfly with a time of 55.75sec.
He also set a new Otago record in the male 15-year short-course 50m freestyle with a time of 24.42sec.
Swimmers from across the country will have the opportunity to test the new starter device at the club’s annual Kiwi Long Course Challenge, being held on Sunday, October 27 during Labour Weekend at Moana Pool.
Bokor said this would be the first long-course meet of the season.
"Which is quite exciting, because particularly the older and more competitive swimmers prefer the long course, because the Olympics, for example, is always held only on a long course."
The club is looking forward to welcoming swimmers from across the country.
"Simply because it is the first long course meet for the season, we do hope that quite a few of the swimmers from the top part of the South Island [attend].
"Sometimes we have had swimmers from Wellington coming as well, simply because they want to start getting used to long-course racing."
