Quick answer
To get started with Gophin, sign in at gophin.app with Google or email (it is free). A short setup asks who you are and helps you find your swimmer by name; select Follow, and their official meet history, best times and progress charts load on their own. There is nothing to type in.
When I showed the first version of Gophin to other swim parents at a meet, the first question was always the same: "How do I find my kid?" This guide answers that, and everything else you need in your first five minutes, screen by screen.
What you need before you start
- Your swimmer's name as it appears on a heat sheet or results. Official records use the registered name, not the nickname on the parka.
- At least one sanctioned meet. Gophin reads official competition results. A swimmer who has never raced a sanctioned meet has no times yet; they appear after the first results file is published.
- A phone or a computer. Gophin works in any browser, and there are apps for iPhone and Android.
Step 1: Sign in (about ten seconds)
Go to gophin.app/login and choose Google, or sign in with an email and password. Use the account you check most often; you will want to pop in after meet weekends.
There is no paid plan. Every feature in Gophin is free for everyone.
Step 2: The three-step setup
The first time you sign in, Gophin walks you through a short setup:
- "Who are you?" Pick I'm a swimmer, I'm a parent, I'm a coach or Something else. It only changes the wording and suggestions you see.
- Find your swimmer. Type at least three letters of the name. If there are many matches, open Advanced Filters and narrow by gender, birth year, country or club. Each result shows birth year, country and club, so you can tell two swimmers with the same name apart. Select Follow next to the right one. Following more than one swimmer (siblings, a training group) is fine.
- Suggested standards. Gophin suggests time standards from your country for the current season. Add them now or skip; you can manage standards later.
Can't find your swimmer? Try the full registered name, drop the middle name, or search part of the surname with the birth year filter. If there are still no results, the search screen has a Help me find my swimmer button that sends us the details. For older results that seem to be missing, see how to find lost swim meet results.
Step 3: Read your dashboard
Home answers one question fast: what happened recently? You will see:
- Best performance: the swimmer's highest World Aquatics points swim, with the meet and date.
- Performance Radar: strokes compared on one chart, in short course meters (SCM) or long course (LCM).
- Best Times by Stroke: personal bests grouped by stroke, with the strongest stroke (by average World Aquatics points) first.
- Recent Meets: the latest competitions; select one to see every swim from that meet.
Think of it as your Monday-morning check-in after a meet weekend.
Step 4: Open Best Times
Select Times → Best Times. This is the heart of Gophin: every personal best, by event.
- Filters: course (SCY, SCM, LCM or all), stroke, and season.
- As Swam / SCM / LCM: show times as swum, or convert everything to one pool length to compare across pools. Converted times are marked with "≈".
- Select an event to expand it. Chart shows every official time in that event, so you can see the line climb across meets (on the chart, a rising line means faster times); Splits shows the race splits when the meet published them; Times opens the full history list.
To know whether a time is "good", compare it with standards for the swimmer's age: our guide to swimming standards by age explains each level.
Step 5: Know where everything lives
On a phone, the bottom bar has five tabs. On a computer, the same items are in the sidebar.
| Tab | What's inside | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Dashboard | See what's new after a meet |
| Times | Best Times, Meets, Standards, Records, World Points, Course Converter | Check PBs, past meets and qualifying times |
| Compare | Standards, Swimmers, Seasons, Compare Groups | See how close a swimmer is to a cut, or this season vs last |
| Rankings | National, region, club and meet rankings | See where a time sits among peers |
| More | Times → Splits, Meet Results, My swimmers, Manage Standards, Custom Times, Edit Groups, Invite Friends, Send Feedback | Organize swimmers and go deeper |
Your first week: five things worth trying
- Compare → Standards: pick the standards your swimmer races for and see the gap in every event (step-by-step tutorial).
- Compare → Seasons: put this season next to last season in one event (how to read it).
- Times → Splits: open a race and see how the swimmer paced it (how to read swim splits).
- Rankings: filter by age group and pool type to see where a time sits (how rankings work).
- Edit Groups: put siblings, a carpool or a training group together.
After this, it runs on its own
From now on, every sanctioned meet your swimmer races appears in Gophin after the official results file is published: new best times, new meets, updated charts. Practice times are not included; Gophin tracks official competition results.
No spreadsheets, no digging through results websites, no manual entry. For the bigger picture of tracking progress over a season, read how to track swimming times.
