ILMSA State SC Championships - 4/20/2006 to 4/23/2006
Former Member
Great turnout, fast times, even a National Record, but terriblly run meet.
They ran out of tee shirts and awards. Positive checkin was a joke. People were denied entry into the 500 and in the end had at least 16 empty lanes. There was a 45 minute unexplained break after heat 2 of the Mens 100 yard back. I think the timing system went down. Okay, but at least make an announcement. I think one of the officials sleept through the 200 breststroke. C'mon ILMSA lets get it together for next year.
Actually there were at least 4 National Records set at the ILMSA State SC Championships: Thomas Maine broke the 80-84 men's national records for the 400 yd IM and 200 yd Butterfly and the two 35+ mixed 400 yard relays (medley and free).
I thought it was a very well run meet and a big improvement over last year at the same venue.
The awards were ordered by the LMSC and were new for this year. Apparently the LMSC did not order enough. Running out of medals was not the fault of the meet hosts. I don't know about the shirts. I thought I saw extra ones for sale at the end of the meet.
Alternates filled in empty lanes in the 500 free until there were no alternates left.
I don't understand why people sign in for the deck seeded events and then decide not to swim, but there was plenty of time for them to retract their decision to swim if they were being considerate of others. Again, I don't think this is something the meet hosts have much control over.
Mary
The state results are on the meet host website.
www.wildkitaquatics.com/.../
Great swimming everyone and Thank you all for participating in a very successful meet. We had 523 swimmers swim in the meet. The meet host did an excellent job.
You cannot blame the meet host for the no shows with positive check-in. You can blame the missing swimmer.
The meet host DID NOT order the medals, I DID.
I personally must apologize for the miscount of the medals.
I counted the correct number of events, however did not take into a count of both men and women.
If you wanted your medal, the great UIC volunteers took your name down and I will be ordering the medals and sending them out to you.
Thank you Evanston Masters, the Evanston Wildkits swim parents for timing, the UIC Swimming and Diving Team for doing a wonderful job.
A special thanks to Kevin and Paul for hosting the meet.
Without them we wouldn't have a state meet.
Please remember they were the only bid.
Congratulations to Evanston Masters for winning the State Championships.
Keep on swimming....Swimming for Life
Nadine KM Day, ILMSA President
On Sunday, I saw a sign saying last year's t-shirts on sale for one buck, this year's for 5 bucks. Do you mean they ran out of certain sizes, or that they ran out?
There was a pretty huge wait-list for the 500, and all of them got in (if they wanted to). Are you suggesting a larger wait-list?
Yeah, they probably should have made an announcement about the delay, but when you see 7 lanes tied at 1:15.43, it is a good guess that something went beserk with the timing.
Someone else was wishing that positive check-in was better (for the 400 IM). I agree, but then the question is how do you make it better, without making excessive work for the meet organizers, and the people actually swimming it. (Don't want someone to think that they have 10 minutes to prepare, and at the last moment tell them they are re-seeded to the next heat.)
Aqua Velva, sorry that you had a bad meet experience.
I thought that the meet was run pretty well overall. Having the results posted already is outstanding. There were certainly quite a number of fast swims and exciting races.
I did not hear about running out of T-shirts and awards. I wonder if there is any chance that some arrangement can be made to make the awards available to those who didn't get them. Not sure that this would be possible, though.
The delay in the 100 back to fix the timing system was not good, but as Matt stated something that needed to be corrected.
I don't have any suggestions for improving on the positive check-in. No one likes to see empty lanes, especially toward the end of the meet. I don't know how that could be fixed. I'm sure all suggestions will be welcome.
I'd like to thank the organizers for all their hard work preparing for and running the meet. This was an enormous amount of work and I thought well done.
I think the meet was very well run. Stuff happens. Pointing fingers doesn't help. Thanks to all the timers, officials, and to those that put the meet together! It was great!!!
The 100 free heats got pretty slim, too, but that has nothing to do with the way the meet was run. I think it was great! I hope all involved decide to host again next year!
I had an excellent meet experience this past weekend. Thank you to all involved in producing this meet. There are always those critical people who choose to focus on anything less then perfect, truth is we don't live in a perfect world and we all make mistakes. Its how things are handled after mistakes are discovered that matters. I hope any negative comments and evaluations don't discourage those who worked so hard for our benefit. Thank you again, each of you who helped produce this excellent swimming experience. Kimberlie
