I have been thinking about an issue Jeff Commings brought up after the SCY Nationals. Jeff pointed out that he might have gone faster if he had been seeded by time rather than by age. I though the same thing as I watched others, including Dennis Baker, Gary Marshall, Rich Abraham, and others decimate their age group competition. How cool would it have been to see heats of the best of the best go head to head? And the competition would likely lead to faster times, at least for those swimmers who like to be pushed as opposed to swimming in clear water.
But for most of us mid-pack folks, it's a whole lot more exciting racing against our competition than a random assortment of folks who happened to have the same seed time. And often those seed times are wildly inaccurate anyway.
I have a couple of thoughts, neither of which are probably workable, but which might be food for thought. One method might involve culling out the top 24 (or some other number) men and top 24 women seeds from each event and swimming them in separate heats. To prevent gaming the seeds, the race staff would compare seeds to actual times within the past year. The remaining swimmers would swim seeded by age. This would be extra work for the race committee, but probably would not increase the length of the meet a whole bunch, if at all, because these folks would be swimming anyway.
Another suggestion might be a prelim/final format, with the top 24 times from each event swimming it again later. There are rest issues and length of meet issues with this one, but how fun would that be? The rock stars would have to figure out just how hard to go in their age group heat to advance, and the finals would be an all-out blast.
Just thinking out loud . . .
I'm having trouble envisioning a formula that works across the board for all age groups. I'm reminded of Potter Stewart's classic definition of pornography -- "I know it when I see it" (which of course inspired countless artists to immediately challenge that definition through art, ultimately proving that "definition" worthless. But I digress).
Anyway, we all know or at least think we know the folks who might benefit from the seeded by time formula. They generally are the breakout leaders of their respective age groups, winning by seconds per 50 over the next nearest competitor. Identifying swimmers by their Top 10 placements comes to mind, but some age groups are competitive as is, and I think we all like knowing that if you outswim the guy or gal next to you, you have beaten one of your competitors.
If time seeding is desirable, maybe voluntary inclusion is the best -- or only -- way to go.
I'm having trouble envisioning a formula that works across the board for all age groups. I'm reminded of Potter Stewart's classic definition of pornography -- "I know it when I see it" (which of course inspired countless artists to immediately challenge that definition through art, ultimately proving that "definition" worthless. But I digress).
Anyway, we all know or at least think we know the folks who might benefit from the seeded by time formula. They generally are the breakout leaders of their respective age groups, winning by seconds per 50 over the next nearest competitor. Identifying swimmers by their Top 10 placements comes to mind, but some age groups are competitive as is, and I think we all like knowing that if you outswim the guy or gal next to you, you have beaten one of your competitors.
If time seeding is desirable, maybe voluntary inclusion is the best -- or only -- way to go.
