Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com I a distance race were held on a Saturday, I would be more likely to show up becuase I would then also swim shorter distances. I can't swim many distance races in one or two days. However, if they are spread out, I can and swim more. My guess is if we offered either the 1000 or 1650 on a Saturday, we would not be able to offer any other events that day. It could realistically double the number of entries from 200 to 400 and we would go from an event that lasts 5-6 hours (currenly what happens when offered on Thursdays) to a 10 - 12 hour long event. This would also make it difficult to offer relays on Saturday. Only a handful of distance swimmers would be left at the end of the event. We could put relays first, but if you are swimming nothing else that day, many would not show up at all. Your idea of dividing an event by seed is interesting. If we do this by time, it will probably encourage sandbagging or entering times much faster than a person can swim to try and control which day you swim on. Assuming people behave and this problem doesn't exist, it would make it difficult to make travel plans until the pysch sheets are posted and we announce the cutoff time that puts you on a certain day. We could do this by age group, but then we seem to be discriminating by age. If not age discrimination, guys like the one that started this thread will be mad that his distance events are too close together. Still, it is an idea worth examining. We do divide the event by age when we seed in three pools. As an example, in Ft. Lauderdale, there will be three courses on the first day of the meet. Athletes over a certain age will be seeded by time and swim in course C. All others will be seeded by time and alternate in course A & B. Keep in mind, one problem we have is that both SC and LC Nationals are about as big as we reasonably handle. If more people start swimming distance races, the championships will have to change to a 5 day format or find some way to further restrict entries. Right now, a unique feature of the meet is that anyone can participate in 3 events without meeting a qualifying time. That could need to be changed if we move distance races to the weekend.

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com I a distance race were held on a Saturday, I would be more likely to show up becuase I would then also swim shorter distances. I can't swim many distance races in one or two days. However, if they are spread out, I can and swim more. My guess is if we offered either the 1000 or 1650 on a Saturday, we would not be able to offer any other events that day. It could realistically double the number of entries from 200 to 400 and we would go from an event that lasts 5-6 hours (currenly what happens when offered on Thursdays) to a 10 - 12 hour long event. This would also make it difficult to offer relays on Saturday. Only a handful of distance swimmers would be left at the end of the event. We could put relays first, but if you are swimming nothing else that day, many would not show up at all. Your idea of dividing an event by seed is interesting. If we do this by time, it will probably encourage sandbagging or entering times much faster than a person can swim to try and control which day you swim on. Assuming people behave and this problem doesn't exist, it would make it difficult to make travel plans until the pysch sheets are posted and we announce the cutoff time that puts you on a certain day. We could do this by age group, but then we seem to be discriminating by age. If not age discrimination, guys like the one that started this thread will be mad that his distance events are too close together. Still, it is an idea worth examining. We do divide the event by age when we seed in three pools. As an example, in Ft. Lauderdale, there will be three courses on the first day of the meet. Athletes over a certain age will be seeded by time and swim in course C. All others will be seeded by time and alternate in course A & B. Keep in mind, one problem we have is that both SC and LC Nationals are about as big as we reasonably handle. If more people start swimming distance races, the championships will have to change to a 5 day format or find some way to further restrict entries. Right now, a unique feature of the meet is that anyone can participate in 3 events without meeting a qualifying time. That could need to be changed if we move distance races to the weekend.