Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:58:47 GMT

I was just looking at the FINA site to see the order of events for worlds. Events are generally distributed very evenly. There aren't a lot of the same type events near eachother. Is there a reason USMS couldn't follow Fina's event line-up?

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

JRidge — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 07:51:26 GMT

Did anyone happen to notice that at the World Championship Trials just completed, the 1500 (men)/800 (women) prelims were on Monday (midday), Finals of each were Tuesday night and then generally those same people swam the non-Olympic distances (1500 for the women and 800 for the men) the following morning (Wednesday). The men had to do both the 400 free and 400 IM on the same day (just as the women did at the Olympics and Trials). So even with 6 days of competition tough doubles or distance back-to-backs aren't avoided. As several people have stated previously; there will always be someone unhappy with the order of events and cycling the order at least offers some chance at equity.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:06:20 GMT

Some of the most OCD swimmers I know are sprinters. Talk about going over & over things. What about the obsession sprinters have with theri starts!

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:21:45 GMT

Lindsay, I appreciate your thoughtful, constructive comments on the issue of the order of events. If I could let me sum up the various positions I have heard from the 1000 & 1650 swimmers: - We want to swim both, not one, of these events at Nationals. - We don't want them and the 500 free crammed into the first few days of the meet, because we will be too tired to swim all of them well. - We don't want them to be the first and last events of the meet, because we will have to spend more time and money on accomodations, and no one will stick around to watch us swim. - We do want the prime time slots--the first events on Saturday and Sunday mornings--and we deserve those slots, despite the fact the shorter events could get in 4 to 12 splashes for every one splash for our events, because all swimmers are equal, but we are more equal than others. - No we don't want to have to train harder to handle all three longer freestyle events in a short time window. - No we don't want to have to pick one or two events to focus on swimming well, instead of all three. - No sorry, the open water swimming is not the same as a pool distance event, and no we don't want to accept open water as a reasonable accomodation. - Yes, we are more than happy to exclude "slower" swimmers from the National meet, so long as the NQTs are set so we can qualify. I realize I am combining the comments of several different people, each of whom has a separate aggenda and proposed solutions. However, these are all views the meet organizing committee has been asked to accomodate. Res Ipsa Loquitur Matt

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 15:09:58 GMT

While I enjoy open water swimming, and am a poor distance swimmer in the pool, and am not upset about the event order, I tend to think that open water swims are very different from racing a 1650 or 1500 at a national caliber meet. Clearly there is tension between allowing a large number of people to swim events that take large amounts of pool time and running a cost effective meet. This has resulted in the distance events being scheduled in a way that discourages participation. To resolve the tension one has to decrease the amount of pool time consumed by the distance events, or increase the amount of money paid, or rearrange the events in a way that accomodates swimmers swimming multiple distance events without increasing the amount of pool time taken. Some things that could be considered: 1) if a swimmer is dedicated enough to swim back to back distance events their total time in the pool will likely be longer than swimming the same events not back to back. 2) swimmers who do not make the qualifying times could swim two to a lane 3) in a two pool/four course meet one course could be used for distance while other events were going on in two other courses 4) a limited number of spots could be made available at times optimized for multiple distance event swimmers either based on qualify time, higher cost, or lottery. In software engineering we often say: quick implementation, low cost, high quality - pick two. In this case we have wide participation, low cost to swimmer while financially viable for the host, optimal spacing of distance events - pick two. Of course you don't actually pick two and drop one entirely, it's just that you can't have all of them at once. What tradeoffs you make will reflect your values and different people have different values and make different tradeoffs. A set of tradeoffs that doesn't fit your values can still be cogent and defensible.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

mattson — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:40:39 GMT

Originally posted by White Buffalo The original complaint was why are the three longest men's races the first three events, all within 24 hours? I know people (mostly triathletes), who are only interested in 500+ yard events. I'm sure they are happy to be done (and fly back to their homes) in 2 days, instead of potentially sticking around for 4 days. I'm not in that camp. Just saying there are people where getting the events out of the way is an advantage. For my part, I'm happy to get the mile over with, rest overnight, and deal with the 500 right away. Gives me a chance to recover before the sprints. For the sprinters who can't cut work days, they can take an early flight friday morning and not miss their events. (I'm guessing that is part of the reason why the 400 IM is the last event. Most people are flying home on Sunday.)

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 07:56:46 GMT

Originally posted by LindsayNB Has USMS considered putting on a National caliber meet that caters primarily to the distance swimmers? It sounds like it would be more expensive to enter, but perhaps the swimmers wouldn't mind, what is a $20 event fee compared to travel and hotel costs? I have no idea if the demand is there, just a thought. In fact, USMS has considered that option. They are called the USMS Long Distance Championships, and there are ten of them. One mile (quarter-mile straightaway or open water course) Quarter-mile straightaway (2 miles) Open water (greater than 1 and less than or equal to 3 miles) Open water (greater than 3 and less than 6 miles) Open water (greater than or equal to 6 miles) Postal 1 hour Postal 5 and 10 kilometer (in 50-meter pool) Postal 3000 and 6000 yard (in a 25-yard pool) ...and on top of those, USMS offers the 1000 and 1650 at Short Course Nationals, plus the 800 and 1500 at Long Course Nationals... I don't think distance swimmers should really have any reason to feel like there's nothing for them.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 07:05:28 GMT

WB, You have touched on a most debatable subject separate from the order of events argument, which is what should our championship look like. Perhaps this is better dealt with on another thread, but I will give a brief answer here. The delegates that each LMSC send to the annual convention are divided into two camps. One agrees with you and feels this meet should be a true national championship with tough qualifying times. (Worlds will have qualifying times for all events at Stanford, 2006, but they are much easier than our NQT's). There is another group that feels nationals is an event for everyone, but only the fastest can swim more than three events. They point to how a championship meet builds the membership in the area hosting the meet. My guess is that time and growth will force us to move to your view of a championship meet. Already, we are having to make our qualifying times more difficult to try and control the size of the LC meet this summer. Our championships are about as big as we can handle (2000 for SC and 1000 - 1200 for LC). If they grow much bigger, we may do things such as restrict the free events to only 2 events. As our Zone meets become bigger, it will ease some of the pressure on nationals as well. As for improving the order of events, I will pass the suggestion along that first 3 event are not the longest. However, there will probably still be a distance event on each day of the meet. If we were to swim both the men's and women's 500 on the same day, that would be a very long event (over 5 hours). To give you an idea, the women's 500 free lasts 3 hours, the men's lasts 2.75 hours and the 400 IM lasts 2.75 hours, the 1650 last 5.5 hours and the 1000 free last 4 hours in a typical SC meet swimming 16 lanes. These numbers come from a meet with only 1700 swimmers. WB, if you want to put together a better schedule of events for a 4-day meet, I will see that it gets submitted for consideration. If you don't want to post it here for public abuse, you can send it to me at mark.gill@usms.org Thanks for your input,

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 06:41:35 GMT

Mark: A good start is not having the 3 longest men's events all in a row and potentially all within 24 hours for some competitors. There is a reason the 500 free at NCAA's is on Thursday and the mile on Saturday. The conflict or paradox is mediocrity versus excellence, no qualifying times versus qualifying times. Do you find it "strange" that master's swimming has a national championship where someone can show up, say age 45, and swim a 30 minute 1650? Do believe this should be at a national championship? This weekend is the men's NCAA wrestling championships. I believe that if a wrestler did not get top 3 in the Big 12, the most dominant conference, the wrestler does not get to go. I guarantee you that there are fourth place Big 12 wrestlers that would excel this weekend, but do not get to go. Why is our national championship open to everyone, and if so, why is it called national championship with such built in medicrity- no qualifying times? The qualifying times are very modest. WB

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 06:23:18 GMT

White Buffalo, I would certainly be interested in your ideas of how the schedule of events could be improved upon.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:16:28 GMT

Has USMS considered putting on a National caliber meet that caters primarily to the distance swimmers? It sounds like it would be more expensive to enter, but perhaps the swimmers wouldn't mind, what is a $20 event fee compared to travel and hotel costs? I have no idea if the demand is there, just a thought.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:17:45 GMT

I hate to inject religion in this but-JESUS! The original complaint was why are the three longest men's races the first three events, all within 24 hours? I have not seen one cogent reply and I would suggest that is because this kind of scheduling is indefensible. Period.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:41:39 GMT

If we followed the suggestion of splitting the 1650 and 1000 each over two days, what would we do with the other distance events? We would have the 500 free and 400 IM on the same day as another distance race. Having them on back to back days is the complaint that started this thread. Imagine what having the races on the same day would do? The idea of proof of times is right in line with the thinking of the championship committee. Currently, a swimmer is required to put down the date they met the qualifying time. We haven't gone with requiring proof of entry yet. For this to really work, we would need to have all meet results sent to a central database. We are not there yet. We are looking at a rule that will require sandbaggers at nationals to submit proof of time when they have great swims (the person who has a 10 minute PR in the middle of the day rather than swim in the fast heat at night sort of great swim).

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Rob Copeland — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:31:07 GMT

Originally posted by LindsayNB Has USMS considered putting on a National caliber meet that caters primarily to the distance swimmers? Lindsay, the answer is yes! And in fact USMS puts on 10 national championships each year that caters primarily to the distance swimmers. These National Long Distance Championships meets range from 1 mile to 10K and beyond. Information about these meets can be found at www.usms.org/longdist/ldchamps.php

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:26:11 GMT

Not only would seeding by time & age help control the enterants but what about having one half on one day and the other half on another day. Say the 1000 yd has half of the heets on Thursday. After those heets you could run some other event. Then on Friday, the second half and then run some events. Then on Saturday morning run half of the 1650. And finally, on Sunday the second half. It would probably even be okay to do them very early. By doing this more people would be involved in all days of the event. The hotels woudl certainly be more grateful! Has this ever been done. Something I've frequently noticed at local meets is that if many very simular events are held close together, I frequently sit around. I will also enter events I don't swim just to have something to do or because of spacing/timing. I was at a meet and I didn't begin until, I think, the 17th event then swam in the 22nd, 25th, and the last. As for sandbaging, a way to possibly stop this is to require proof onthe entry form. If the person has to write down where & when the time was made, they are less likely to lie about it. Especially since it is very verifiable because almost all results from local events end up on some computer spot.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:21:47 GMT

The evil smith owns the 50yd free and Boatwright owns the WR in the 50m free. (40-44) Still think god is on the sprinters side?

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Rob Copeland — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:18:35 GMT

Mark arrogant? I don’t think so, Paul. So I went to my Funk & Wagnall to look up arrogant, and found the following… Main Entry: ar•ro•gant Pronunciation: -g&nt Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Latin arrogant-, arrogans, present participle of arrogare 1 : exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance in an overbearing manner 2 : proceeding from or characterized by arrogance synonym see PROUD - ar•ro•gant•ly adverb See photo below:

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:17:02 GMT

Oh, I beg to differ ... I fully believe that God is a fan of the sprinters.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Paul Smith — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:06:48 GMT

Mark.........apologizing........for "appearing" arrogant? Mark you ARE arrogant! Who loves ya baby!! :D

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:17 GMT

I can assure you god is not on the sprinter's side.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:23:32 GMT

I've swum four events back to back at a smaller meet with very few heats. I made it through, so will you. Either quit your whinning and get into the pool and train OR shut up. The order of events will always displease someone. I also swim a weird combo of events, and at many meets go hmmm ... five in a row, aye? Oh well ... It's life. Life isn't fair. You can't make everyone happy. GOD BLESS SPRINTERS! Oh, and I did gymnastics for 10 years, and was very flexible even for a gymnast and my breaststroke looks like a frog on crack ...

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:50:49 GMT

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.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:32:35 GMT

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. Also has anyone thought about dividing seeds up by days. I've always thought that if the first half of the 1650 were on one day and the second half on another, more people might swim. also, fewer peoole woudl be sitting around waiting for their heet and other events can be mixed into the day better. If I may say so, I think this is a brilliant idea. When I look at many big meets, I see thta people who swim short distances can frequently get away with being at a meet for only two days. They can swim many different event & different strokes.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:59:22 GMT

Craig, I apologize if I seemed arrogant in my prior post. That was not my intention. Nationals is a balancing act between the desire of athletes, cost of the facilities, ability of the volunteers and time. If we put an event like the 1000 or 1650 on a Saturday, we would probably not be able to offer other events that day. That would drive participation down in the overall event. Potentially, the meet could lose money. It is really a matter of economics and limited resources. To give you an idea, the 2003 SC nationals had expenses of over $100,000. There is risk to a meet host in running a national event. With all the work and time put in (over 60,000 volunteer hours during the event - not to mention the year and a half of planning prior to the event). As an organization, USMS has to make sure there is the potential for a positive return for the organizations that agree to host our events. To do that, we put our most popular events on Saturday and Sunday (the largest attendance days). Is this unfair to distance swimmers. Probably. But it is the unfortunate truth that we can't have as many swimmers served during an hour of distance racing as we can during an hour of shorter events. Some possible solutions that are being explored. * this summer we are running a 5 day format for LC Nationals. The 1500 and 800 are separeted over two days. The swimmers that meet the qualifying times in both events can swim both. The events are Thursday and Monday. Still not on the most popular days, but it will allow athletes to swim both. There is a higher cost to this solution. Not only is there pool costs (between $1000 - $5000 per day), there is also the cost of additional volunteers, you have to use an additional day of vacation, spend another night in a hotel and eat out one more day. * We can seed the distance events by time only disregarding gender and age group. Typically this will save about 1.5 hours over an event. * Some zone meets charge a higher price for distance events to account for the length of time and additional cost of the events. Basically, they price discriminating the distance events. In this case, a regular event costs $2.50 and a distance race costs $20. * Other have proposed that we tighten the time standards so only the very elite can swim the longer events. * another proposal is to make all distance swimmers swim 2 per lane to cut down on time. Not a populare option among distance athletes, but this is mandated at World championships. As you can see, not all of these solutions are ideal. However, it is a difficult problem when a single heat can take over 40 minutes. In 2003, swimming in 16 lanes, it took over 6 hours to get through the 1650 and 5 hours for the 1000. That was with only 200 athletes competing at each distance compared to over 800 in the 50 free. Now, the rest of that meet had 1600, 1900 and 1800 athletes attending on the following days. If only 400 people wanted to swim a distance event, we would be looking at a 10 - 12 hour day that only offered the 1650 or 1000. You are right, this is a membership driven organization. The feeling of the championship committee is that only offering a single event on a Saturday would not serve our membership well. However, we don't claim to know all the answers and try to consider the suggestions made by members, so if you have a better idea, we would certainly be open to it.

RE: Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

Former Member — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:17:04 GMT

Somewhere in all of the weirdness of this thread is something I think is very disturbing. It is stated tht the rationale for putting both the 1650 & the 1000 on the same day is becasue they are very popular events, and if they were on seperate days too many people would want to participate. The argument is that one day woudl be very long. This is a membership! We must never forget this. If the 1000 is the most popular event, then the schedule must be arranged to allow as many peole as possible to participate. This is a very arrogant argument.