Mission Viejo had very good facilities, great weather, superb organization, and the best hosts. Overall a great meet.
However, as commented in another thread, there were lots of no shows. In four of five events I had an empty lane next to me. This is not the best racing environment, and it makes the meet last longer than necessary. I am not critical of the people that did not show up -- I was one of them on Thursday, as an emergency at work made me arrive a day late.
On deck seeding would be a simple and easy solution.
Evidently some people like to know a day or days in advance who will swim in their heat. However, the way it worked for me, I found out as I walked up to the block who would *not* be swimming. *That's* lots of opportunity to get psyched! (not)
I don't think the way this meet was seeded (check in for distance events, advanced seeding for the other events) was a very good compromise. This was my first non-deck seeded masters meet, and I did not enjoy that aspect of it.
Get a world-class announcer and have him or her announce the swimmers before each heat. Do it in the time it takes the previous heat's swimmers to get out of the pool.
The timeline implications of this suggestion would actually slow the meet down more than not deck seeding does. Consider we have several hundred heats that take place each day. If you only spent 20 seconds reading off the 8 names clearly so those without heat sheets knew who was stepping up, you would add over 1.5 hours to the meet.
At our LC Nationals, we use dive over starts. The heat is called up to the blocks while the heat in the water is finishing. As soon as the last person touches, the starter begins the sequence of commands to start the race. Only after the swimmers are off the blocks do the athletes in the just finished heat exit the water.
At SC Nationals, we do not use dive over starts, but the start is calling the swimmers up on the blocks as the athletes finish and exit. Once the start blows the first series of whistles all the announce can do is give the heat number.
Get a world-class announcer and have him or her announce the swimmers before each heat. Do it in the time it takes the previous heat's swimmers to get out of the pool.
The timeline implications of this suggestion would actually slow the meet down more than not deck seeding does. Consider we have several hundred heats that take place each day. If you only spent 20 seconds reading off the 8 names clearly so those without heat sheets knew who was stepping up, you would add over 1.5 hours to the meet.
At our LC Nationals, we use dive over starts. The heat is called up to the blocks while the heat in the water is finishing. As soon as the last person touches, the starter begins the sequence of commands to start the race. Only after the swimmers are off the blocks do the athletes in the just finished heat exit the water.
At SC Nationals, we do not use dive over starts, but the start is calling the swimmers up on the blocks as the athletes finish and exit. Once the start blows the first series of whistles all the announce can do is give the heat number.
