Colonies Zone SCY Championships - Fairfax VA

I'm all for expanding the sport, and getting triathletes involved is part of that. But yes as far as I can tell, it sold out in an hour or two. In future years, hopefully they will figure out a way to open it up for people with some sort of qualifying swims. Maybe if you have a 500 or longer usms swim in the last year you get to signup in week 1, everyone else is week 2. This is how they do it for the Boston Marathon (or a system like it) and might work here, particularly since this is the colonies zone championships. On one hand allowing dedicated masters swimmers to sign up and also allowing some new swimmers to get in as well. For Nationals that is sort of what we do to help with the meet timeline (qual times). That would certainly add an administrative layer of work to a Zone meet to go that route, though. I can see why it is much more straightforward to simply limit the number of entries per event if you know how many heats you can accommodate - it cuts right to the chase and fills your meet just the way you want. And after all, picking a Qual time doesn't always work and could really bite you if you your timeline is a concern and you missed the mark with your cuts. Anyway, what is more fair in life than first come first served if the meet was announced to all in advance? It's not like the meet was announced only to one team. I am helping with a meet this year and we plan to enforce an entry cap (if we get to that limit). Hopefully we settle out just below the cap and it isn't an issue. We set the number lower than last year, but above just about every other year so it is anybody's guess what will happen. If we should reach that limit, I'm sure there will be some unhappy swimmers who want to swim but what can you do? It's sort of the same thing at Nationals when somebody realizes the day after the entry deadline that they forgot to enter. Neither method (first come first served, entry deadline) discriminates against anybody. It's all the triathletes, especially Team Z, that register right away and take all the spots from masters swimmers. I just checked and they all are in fact registered USMS swimmers.

I'm all for expanding the sport, and getting triathletes involved is part of that. But yes as far as I can tell, it sold out in an hour or two. In future years, hopefully they will figure out a way to open it up for people with some sort of qualifying swims. Maybe if you have a 500 or longer usms swim in the last year you get to signup in week 1, everyone else is week 2. This is how they do it for the Boston Marathon (or a system like it) and might work here, particularly since this is the colonies zone championships. On one hand allowing dedicated masters swimmers to sign up and also allowing some new swimmers to get in as well. For Nationals that is sort of what we do to help with the meet timeline (qual times). That would certainly add an administrative layer of work to a Zone meet to go that route, though. I can see why it is much more straightforward to simply limit the number of entries per event if you know how many heats you can accommodate - it cuts right to the chase and fills your meet just the way you want. And after all, picking a Qual time doesn't always work and could really bite you if you your timeline is a concern and you missed the mark with your cuts. Anyway, what is more fair in life than first come first served if the meet was announced to all in advance? It's not like the meet was announced only to one team. I am helping with a meet this year and we plan to enforce an entry cap (if we get to that limit). Hopefully we settle out just below the cap and it isn't an issue. We set the number lower than last year, but above just about every other year so it is anybody's guess what will happen. If we should reach that limit, I'm sure there will be some unhappy swimmers who want to swim but what can you do? It's sort of the same thing at Nationals when somebody realizes the day after the entry deadline that they forgot to enter. Neither method (first come first served, entry deadline) discriminates against anybody. It's all the triathletes, especially Team Z, that register right away and take all the spots from masters swimmers. I just checked and they all are in fact registered USMS swimmers.