Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

John, The short answer to your question is the House of Delegates at the annual convention chooses the order of events at nationals. Actually, they choose 3 different versions of the order of events and these versions are rotated. The schedule for that is listed in the rulebook (www.usms.org/.../part1.pdf on page 42). The last time these schedules were chosen, a subcommittee of the championship committee met and came up with 7 proposed schedules. A set of guidelines is used when making up the order of events. For example, either the first of last day of the meet will be the distance day (the 800/1000 and 1500/1650), no more than one distance event on the other days of the meet. Because of time the 400/500 is split between two days. A stroke will only be swum once per day (so you won't have the 50 and 200 *** on the same day). After all these conditions are met, we then try to avoid a set of doubles that is determined by a survey of swimmers. This way we avoid things such as the 200 IM and 200 back ending up back to back events. There are 10 sets of doubles that we avoid. We then go through each schedule and look at the number of swimmers that we would expect to enter an event and try to determine an estimated timeline. We use results from previous nationals held in similar cities to come up with these estimates. We use scratch rates and no show rates from previous nationals as well as we try to load balance the days of the meet. It is important that Friday is not 7 hours long and Saturday is not 12 hours long. Once all this has been completed, we present the schedules to the House of Delegates. They vote for their least favorite and we eliminate the schedules one at a time until there are only three left. These are the ones that we will use for the next two years. This is not an exact science. We try to consider what is best for all swimmers in the meet, but by no means do we always come up with the best possible schedule for all people. However, Paul is right, we are always open to folks that want to help. To get involved, let your local LSMC know that you would be interested in going to convention. Alternatively, contact Barry Fasbender, the chair of the championship committee and let him know that you would be interested in helping develop the list of possible schedules.

John, The short answer to your question is the House of Delegates at the annual convention chooses the order of events at nationals. Actually, they choose 3 different versions of the order of events and these versions are rotated. The schedule for that is listed in the rulebook (www.usms.org/.../part1.pdf on page 42). The last time these schedules were chosen, a subcommittee of the championship committee met and came up with 7 proposed schedules. A set of guidelines is used when making up the order of events. For example, either the first of last day of the meet will be the distance day (the 800/1000 and 1500/1650), no more than one distance event on the other days of the meet. Because of time the 400/500 is split between two days. A stroke will only be swum once per day (so you won't have the 50 and 200 *** on the same day). After all these conditions are met, we then try to avoid a set of doubles that is determined by a survey of swimmers. This way we avoid things such as the 200 IM and 200 back ending up back to back events. There are 10 sets of doubles that we avoid. We then go through each schedule and look at the number of swimmers that we would expect to enter an event and try to determine an estimated timeline. We use results from previous nationals held in similar cities to come up with these estimates. We use scratch rates and no show rates from previous nationals as well as we try to load balance the days of the meet. It is important that Friday is not 7 hours long and Saturday is not 12 hours long. Once all this has been completed, we present the schedules to the House of Delegates. They vote for their least favorite and we eliminate the schedules one at a time until there are only three left. These are the ones that we will use for the next two years. This is not an exact science. We try to consider what is best for all swimmers in the meet, but by no means do we always come up with the best possible schedule for all people. However, Paul is right, we are always open to folks that want to help. To get involved, let your local LSMC know that you would be interested in going to convention. Alternatively, contact Barry Fasbender, the chair of the championship committee and let him know that you would be interested in helping develop the list of possible schedules.