Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Actually, there is considerable planning that goes into these events. However, you bring up an interesting question, why are the three longest events the first three? The 1650/1000 will always be on the same day in a four day national championship. It has to do with limited resources. We put the two longest events on the day that the fewest people will be there for a reason, to keep down the length of the day. If we put the 1000 on Saturday, it would be extremely popular. As it is right now, on a Thursday, the event lasts half a day (about 4 - 6 hours). On a Saturday, it would probably take 3/4 of a day (6-9 hours) or more. This would prevent us from being able to offer but one of two other events. At short course nationals, it is not uncommon for a well attended meet (one that approaches 2000 swimmers) to have days that last 12 hours. We are trying to prevent the days from being longer than 12 hours. We are trying some other options. At LC Nationals this year at Mission Viejo, the meet will run for 5 days. At this meet, the 1500 and 800 are on separate days. This is going to allow distance swimmers to compete on both events. However, there is a cost involved. It is one more day of rent on for a pool ($1000 - $5000 depending on the facility)and one more day of volunteers (about 300 people pre day). For the athetes, it means one more day of vacation, one more day of hotel and food. If this is successful, perhaps we will be able to spread out the events more in the future. As for the 500, it is on the first day only in one out of the three schedules. We would not want to always have the 400 IM as the Friday distance event. It would discriminate against IMers. Especially those that can make it to the meet until Saturday. In a large meet, we would expect Saturday to have about 200 - 300 more swimmers than Friday. Why is the event first? In outdoor meets, the logic is that it will get warmer as the day progresses. We would rather let the sprinters and shorter races take place when it is hot out. Let the distance swimmers go first while the temperature is still cool is the idea we had in mind. However, we do rotate that in some of the schedules. There are going to be tradeoffs with any of these ideas. If we tried to put the 500 at the end of the meet, people would be upset that sprinters could leave at 3:00 on Sunday and fly home, but the distance swimmers in the 500 wouldn't finish for another 3 hours, effectively missing their flights and forcing them to bear another day of hotel, food and vacation. If we put the 1000 or 1650 on a day other than Thursday in a SC nationals and moved sprint events onto Thursday, it would drive participation down at the meet. Now the meet host doesn't make money. We have to balance the needs of the athletes, the meet host and the volunteers. Lots of different angles to plan from.

Actually, there is considerable planning that goes into these events. However, you bring up an interesting question, why are the three longest events the first three? The 1650/1000 will always be on the same day in a four day national championship. It has to do with limited resources. We put the two longest events on the day that the fewest people will be there for a reason, to keep down the length of the day. If we put the 1000 on Saturday, it would be extremely popular. As it is right now, on a Thursday, the event lasts half a day (about 4 - 6 hours). On a Saturday, it would probably take 3/4 of a day (6-9 hours) or more. This would prevent us from being able to offer but one of two other events. At short course nationals, it is not uncommon for a well attended meet (one that approaches 2000 swimmers) to have days that last 12 hours. We are trying to prevent the days from being longer than 12 hours. We are trying some other options. At LC Nationals this year at Mission Viejo, the meet will run for 5 days. At this meet, the 1500 and 800 are on separate days. This is going to allow distance swimmers to compete on both events. However, there is a cost involved. It is one more day of rent on for a pool ($1000 - $5000 depending on the facility)and one more day of volunteers (about 300 people pre day). For the athetes, it means one more day of vacation, one more day of hotel and food. If this is successful, perhaps we will be able to spread out the events more in the future. As for the 500, it is on the first day only in one out of the three schedules. We would not want to always have the 400 IM as the Friday distance event. It would discriminate against IMers. Especially those that can make it to the meet until Saturday. In a large meet, we would expect Saturday to have about 200 - 300 more swimmers than Friday. Why is the event first? In outdoor meets, the logic is that it will get warmer as the day progresses. We would rather let the sprinters and shorter races take place when it is hot out. Let the distance swimmers go first while the temperature is still cool is the idea we had in mind. However, we do rotate that in some of the schedules. There are going to be tradeoffs with any of these ideas. If we tried to put the 500 at the end of the meet, people would be upset that sprinters could leave at 3:00 on Sunday and fly home, but the distance swimmers in the 500 wouldn't finish for another 3 hours, effectively missing their flights and forcing them to bear another day of hotel, food and vacation. If we put the 1000 or 1650 on a day other than Thursday in a SC nationals and moved sprint events onto Thursday, it would drive participation down at the meet. Now the meet host doesn't make money. We have to balance the needs of the athletes, the meet host and the volunteers. Lots of different angles to plan from.