What this site is
SwimConvert is a pair of free calculators for swimmers, coaches and parents who need to compare times and paces across pool types. The swim time converter turns a time achieved in one pool into the equivalent time in another — between short course yards (SCY), short course meters (SCM) and long course meters (LCM). The swim pace calculator works out pace per 100, predicts a race time from a training pace, and builds split tables for a goal swim.
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install. Both calculators run entirely in your browser: the times you type are processed on your own device and are never sent to a server, stored, or shared.
Where the conversion factors come from
Conversion factors are not invented here. For meter-to-meter conversions (SCM ↔ LCM) the factors are derived from the official World Aquatics points base times — the short-course and long-course reference times published for every standard event, for men and women separately. World Aquatics updates these tables every year, and the factors used on this site were last checked against the 2026 release.
For yards, the factors come from the NCAA Division I conversion tables, which publish per-event, per-gender factors for 25-yard, 25-meter and 50-meter courses. World Aquatics does not publish yard-pool factors, because 25-yard courses are not part of its sanctioned program; the NCAA tables are the authoritative published source for them. Converted times are truncated to hundredths of a second, the same convention governing bodies use when they accept converted entries.
Distance conversions — yards to meters and back — are exact, not statistical: one yard is defined as exactly 0.9144 meters.
Who it is for
The tools are built for the situations that actually come up: checking whether a short-course season time meets a long-course qualifying standard, setting interval send-offs when a team moves from a yard pool to a meter pool mid-season, planning checkpoints for a goal race, and comparing training logs across pool types. If you coach, you can use the pace table and split output straight from a phone at the pool deck.
Accuracy and limits
Converted times are planning numbers, not guarantees. A factor is an average drawn from competitive results, and individual swimmers gain or lose more than average from a change of pool depending on their turns, underwaters and start. Meets that accept converted entries publish their own tables, and those tables can differ slightly from the ones used here — always check the meet information before relying on a converted time for an entry.
The distance lists follow the standard events for each course and stroke, because conversion factors only exist for standard events. If you spot an error in a factor, a broken page, or a distance that should be offered, please get in touch — corrections are checked against the official sources and shipped quickly.