What NT actually means
On a heat sheet — a start list, a programme, the PDF in the squad WhatsApp — the last column is almost always a seed time. Most rows have a number: 39.88, or 1:23.45. Some rows say NT.
NT is Hy-Tek shorthand for No Time. Meet Manager, the software that prints most Irish and North American sheets, has nothing official to sort that swimmer with. The club entered them. The file has no previous licensed time for that swim. So it prints two letters instead of a clock. That is the whole definition: an empty seed, not “not timed today” and not the meet calling them slow. The heat-sheet guide names NT in one paragraph so you can keep reading event, heat, and lane. This page is the parent version of those two letters.
If you can find the name, you are looking at the right row. Event, heat, and lane are how you get them to the block — that is the other guide. Here you only need the last cell. A number is last best going in — what a seed time is. NT means there is no last best yet.
It is not a DQ, and it is not a problem
A disqualification is a decision after a race: a stroke judge’s slip, a false start, a turn that did not count. It lands on the results. NT lands on the start list, hours or days before anyone dives. Mixing the two is how a first-gala Saturday turns into a row in the car park. I have watched parents whisper “they’ve been DQ’d already” over a printed programme while the child is still eating a banana. Nothing has happened yet. The letters mean the opposite of a penalty: the meet is waiting for a time, and this race is how they get one.
NT also does not mean the host will skip the pad. If they finish legally, they get a clock. Heat 1 still counts. Lane 1 still counts. Places in a timed-final session are decided by time across every heat, not by who started last.
Do not tell a first-timer that NT means they are “only swimming for fun” or that the race “doesn’t count”. It counts. The letters are admin. The swim is the first line in their history.
When you see NT — and when you should
The cleanest case is a first licensed swim in that event. First 50 freestyle at a Level 1 or entry Level 2. First 100 back after a winter of drill. First fly, because the coach finally said they were ready. The club’s Hy-Tek file has never been shown that race, so the sheet cannot invent a seed.
NT is also per event. A child can have a 36.40 in 50 free and NT in 50 fly on the same PDF. Seeds do not travel across strokes, and they do not travel across courses unless someone entered a converted time. Many clubs leave a new course as NT. Two clocks, two histories — that is short course vs long course, not a missing child.
The third case is paperwork: an entry without a time, last best stuck in a WhatsApp screenshot, a club change that left the old file behind. The swimmer is not new; the seed is. After today, stop relying on the chat — never lose a PB is the longer sermon. If this is the first gala, not just the first time in one stroke, the day itself is Your Child's First Irish Gala.
Why NT swimmers sit in the early heats
Meet Manager has to put people in an order. In most timed-final galas — the usual Irish club format, and the usual USA Swimming / Swimming Canada age-group format — heats run slowest seed to fastest seed. A missing time is treated as the slowest possible seed, so NT rows collect in heat 1, sometimes heat 2 if the event is huge. That is housekeeping, not a hiding place. A first official time from heat 1 is still the time.
Championship prelims sometimes circle-seed the last heats. Dual meets sometimes run fastest first. If the meet pack says something else, believe the pack. For why the fastest go last, and why lane 1 is not a verdict, read the sibling guide, why the fastest swimmers go last. This page only needs one sentence: NT usually means you watch the start of the event, not the end.
NT is not DQ, NS, or scratch
Four abbreviations get treated as the same shrug. They are four different moments in the day.
| Letters | Full name | When it appears | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| NT | No Time | Start list / heat sheet | No official seed on file. They are still racing. |
| SCR | Scratch | Start list or a reseed | Withdrawn before the swim. The lane may go empty. |
| NS | No Show | Results | They did not appear behind the blocks. |
| DQ | Disqualification | Results | The swim did not count. There is usually a reason code. |
Letters on the start list before warm-up are a seed (NT) or a withdrawal (SCR). Letters after the race are a result (NS or DQ).
Irish start lists, WhatsApp, and Meet Mobile
In Ireland you rarely buy a heat sheet at a folding table the way US decks do. The host seeds the meet in Hy-Tek and sends a start list to each club. Your Team Manager highlights the names and drops the PDF on WhatsApp. That file is the heat sheet. NT sits in the seed column, same as a 39.88, just louder because it is letters.
Bigger weekends — Connacht Open, Leinster, Irish Open, McCullagh — often publish a psych sheet first, then heats. Meet Mobile shows the same NT when the host publishes the database. Common at regional and Swim Ireland meets; not guaranteed at a Sunday Level 1. If the meet is not in the app, trust the PDF. A blank time on a printed programme is the paper version of the same thing. The Irish words are gala, start list, programme, and Team Manager. The software is the same cousin US parents already know.
Circle every NT on your copy of the start list the night before. Those are the swims with no baseline. After each one, write the new time in the margin before you leave the balcony. That scribble is how PB #1 survives until you get to a phone.
A worked example — follow Aoife
Same invented Event 7 as the heat-sheet guide: Girls 11–12 50 Freestyle, eight-lane short course, timed finals. Over there we followed Holly in heat 2. Here we stay with Aoife Brennan — heat 1, lane 1, seed NT. Names and clubs are examples only.
| Lane | Name | Age | Team | Seed time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brennan, Aoife | 11 | EXSC | NT |
| 2 | Patel, Maya | 12 | DEMO | 48.21 |
| 3 | Walsh, Ciara | 11 | SHRK | 46.80 |
| 4 | Byrne, Sophie | 12 | EXSC | 45.12 |
| 5 | Doyle, Emma | 11 | SHRK | 45.55 |
| 6 | Kelly, Niamh | 12 | DEMO | 47.03 |
| 7 | Murphy, Leah | 11 | EXSC | 49.10 |
| 8 | — |
| Lane | Name | Age | Team | Seed time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Ryan, Holly | 12 | EXSC | 39.88 |
| 5 | O'Neill, Grace | 11 | SHRK | 40.21 |
Aoife (highlighted) has no official 50 free on file, so the seed says NT and she sits in heat 1. Sophie in lane 4 is fastest in that heat, not in the event. Holly’s 39.88 is last best going in. After Aoife races, the results replace NT with a number — the next seed. Names and clubs are examples only.
Read the last column, not the heat number. Aoife is not “worse than” Holly this morning. Aoife has never been given a licensed 50 free. Holly has. The session will give Aoife a clock. Next month’s start list should print it.
What happens after they swim
Three documents, three jobs. The start list said NT. The scoreboard — or Meet Mobile — shows a first look, often unofficial until officials sign it off. The results sheet is the official time. There was no seed to beat. The result is the seed from now on.
If they add time at the next gala, that is a second swim, not a failure of the first. If the first gala was Level 1, the club may keep the time and the national database may never see it — still write it down. Unofficial does not mean imaginary. The longer archive argument is in Never Lose a PB. A DQ after an NT swim is the only version that stays empty; the next sheet may say NT again. That is frustrating. It is still not the letters’ fault.
What to say on the balcony
Children read faces faster than they read heat sheets. If you look panicked at NT, they will invent a story. The useful sentence is boring: “That means they don’t have an official time for this race yet. After you swim, they will.” Do not apologise for heat 1. Do not compare them to the child in heat 3 with a 34. Do not coach from the gallery — Irish decks are not a parent zone.
After the race, one question: “How did that feel?” Then write the time. If you want a script for the rest of the day — warm-up, marshalling, the long wait — that is the first-gala guide.
NT is an empty seed, not an empty Saturday. The race still counts. The first official time is the start of the list, not a problem to explain away.
That first official time is PB #1
I built Finzy so the first licensed clock does not live in a wet programme or a WhatsApp photo that dies in March. Event, course, time to the hundredth, date, gala. For an NT swim there is no “before” to compare. The result is personal best number one for that event in that course. Next month’s start list should print the number. If it does not, you still have the row. Put PB #1 in one place before you leave the car park.
