on deck check in

Former Member
Former Member
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.
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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    I have talked to several meet administers who all agree that on-deck check in is worth whatever extra effort is involved, so I do not buy the too much work or too much extra time argument. I have helped at several USS meets (I was the person who collected the check in sheets, marked the ones scratched, passed in on to the person at the computer, and posted the heat sheets in the highly trafficked areas) and seen it work first hand. A person removes the names not checked and prints the sheets -- voila! finished before the event and no late nights. Perhaps they used a different system at MV. But time saving is not a major driver for me, though I do not look forward to an international meet where the 50 events take considerably more than half an hour. I just want a better meet, and I hope that my desire for full heats (as full as practical -- the argument that there will always be empty lanes is true but irrelevant) is not perceived as more selfish than the desire of some swimmers to not be inconvenienced by checking in to events once a day. I am not a big fan of heat sheets in my hand during the meet -- it seems like a waste of trees, to me. I ask my friends when they are swimming or look for their names in the posted sheets. As for those elderly who have problems with that, I don't see why heat sheets would help (we have a memory problem, right?), and that is what coaches, friends, family, and teammates are for. I watched a 360+ relay team make their relay events no problem, and there were no before the day heat sheets for those events. (by the way, when do you think the first 400+ relay will occur?)
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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    I have talked to several meet administers who all agree that on-deck check in is worth whatever extra effort is involved, so I do not buy the too much work or too much extra time argument. I have helped at several USS meets (I was the person who collected the check in sheets, marked the ones scratched, passed in on to the person at the computer, and posted the heat sheets in the highly trafficked areas) and seen it work first hand. A person removes the names not checked and prints the sheets -- voila! finished before the event and no late nights. Perhaps they used a different system at MV. But time saving is not a major driver for me, though I do not look forward to an international meet where the 50 events take considerably more than half an hour. I just want a better meet, and I hope that my desire for full heats (as full as practical -- the argument that there will always be empty lanes is true but irrelevant) is not perceived as more selfish than the desire of some swimmers to not be inconvenienced by checking in to events once a day. I am not a big fan of heat sheets in my hand during the meet -- it seems like a waste of trees, to me. I ask my friends when they are swimming or look for their names in the posted sheets. As for those elderly who have problems with that, I don't see why heat sheets would help (we have a memory problem, right?), and that is what coaches, friends, family, and teammates are for. I watched a 360+ relay team make their relay events no problem, and there were no before the day heat sheets for those events. (by the way, when do you think the first 400+ relay will occur?)
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