Dear @captain-prairie_dog,
Each contest has it's deadline period, for Q22 it was 31st of January. The live period is 4 months during which strategies will be evaluated and at the end of that period the prizes will be given to the winners. So to answer your question, yes, user needs to backtest and submit the strategy before the submission deadline and pass the filters (sharpe ratio, liquidity etc.) in order to participate in the contest. After that, all participating strategies are evaluated on real data in the following contest period (usually 4 months) and the score is calculated as a sharpe ratio. You can check what it is and how is it calculated in the documentation page on our website.
Hopefully this will clear up the confusion, and if you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.
Best regards