Challenges

In July 2020, Swim.com added virtual challenges to our mobile app. Challenges are intended to give you a goal to work towards and make your swimming and Swim.com experience more enjoyable. Completing a challenge will award you a digital badge and, depending on the particular challenge, potentially enter you in a Swim.com contest or raffle to win prizes or discounts on goods from our partners and sponsors.

What types of challenges are there?

Challenges can be distance, duration, or activity-based and will have specified start and end times. Some challenges will consist of needing only to complete a single activity or might require completing multiple activities. Most challenges will be swimming-based (either pool, open water, or both), while some may include other activities such cross-training activities running, cycling, yoga, etc. 

Some challenges are also considered race challenges. Race challenges differ in that they are for specific stroke types swam over specified distances and course lengths. Race challenges also allow you to make as many attempts as you would like at the challenge (provided the swim data is created and time stamped within the time frame of the challenge), and your best overall performance over that time frame will be your active entry into the challenge. 

How do I join a challenge and participate?

Challenges are accessed from the Discover tab on the Swim.com mobile app. You must be running the most recent version of the Swim.com app software in order to see the Discover tab.

Select a challenge to uncover more details about what types of activities you will need to complete in order to participate as well as what rewards are involved for completing the challenge.

U.S. Masters Swimming Challenges

Additionally, some challenges will only be open to US Masters Swimming members and in order to join these challenges you will need to be a USMS member in good standing as well as have connected your My USMS account to Swim.com through the Swim.com app at Settings>Integrations>USMS.

Challenge Leaderboards

Challenges have their own leaderboards, which are located at the bottom of the challenge details. These leaderboards are only accessible from selecting the challenge details - they are not available on the main Leaderboards tab of the mobile app.

How is data eligibility determined?

Challenge leaderboards are automatically aggregated with data that already exists on a swimmer's feed, however, there are some requirements that the activity data must meet in order to be included in the challenge leaderboard/results.

For activity data to be considered eligible for participation in a challenge, the user must first join the challenge. After joining a challenge, data considered to be eligible must meet the requirements stated in the Challenge description and have a creation date/time stamp that falls within the specified time range of the challenge AND must have been created/timestamped on the same day that you selected the joined button for the challenge, or later. For example, if you join a challenge two days after it started, only activity data from the day you joined will be eligible to be included on the challenge leaderboard and anything in the days prior to that, even if it is within the specified time frame of the challenge, will not. Additionally, if you joined a challenge at approximately 1 p.m., but swam earlier that day at 8 a.m. and the data was recorded or logged to your Swim.com account, that data would be considered eligible.

There are also some account and privacy settings that can affect whether or not your activity data will appear on a Challenge leaderboard. In addition to the above requirements, you must also have your account settings adjusted in the following way:

1) Your swim data has been made publicly visible to other users (set "New Swims" to "Public")
2) Private profile settings are NOT enabled
3) You have enabled leaderboards in your account settings

How Do I Manually Enter Swim/Activity Data for a Challenge?

There are two ways to enter a manual time. The easiest way to do this, is directly from the Challenge landing page. 

The screenshot below shows where this tool is. It is located in the upper right corner of each Challenge landing page and it will *only* appear once you have successfully joined the Challenge.


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When choosing this method of manually entering swim data, the tool will automatically assign the correct stroke type to the entry, if applicable to the Challenge.

You can also enter a manual entry via the tool located in the upper left corner of the screen when you have the Feed or Progress tabs selected, however, you must manually adjust your stroke type with this tool, if it is applicable to the Challenge.

How Do I See What Challenges I Have Completed (Where Are My Badges?)

Badges will show on your profile page. To access this, select the "Settings" tab in the lower right corner of the app screen. Then select Profile>View Profile

How Do I Leave a Challenge?

To leave or "un-join" a challenge, you will first need to navigate to the main Challenge screen, where you should see a list of the Challenges you have joined.
Select the challenge you wish to leave.

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From there, finding the "leave" button takes a few steps. Please see the instructions in the red text within the screenshots.

How Do I Find My Redeem Code For Completed Challenges?

If the Challenge you completed offers a redemption code for prizes, you can retrieve your code through the Swim.com app. At the bottom of each Challenge's landing page, there should be a blue "Get Reward" button at the bottom that appears once you have completed the Challenge.
It looks like this:
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