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 . . .
We swim all year being seeded by time only, even at Regionals. I think it's a nice change to be seeded by age groups for once and actually be in the pool racing the people you are competing against for medals.
Additionally, the age group seeding works for the vast majority of swimmers. While I respect the fact that Jeff would have liked to have swum next to Gary in the 100 IM, there is a pool full of other swimmers competing for 2nd-8th who all want to swim next to each other. Gary's race is the perfect example - although Gary won by over 2 seconds, less than 2 seconds seperated 2nd-10th place in that event. Plus, It's just not the same when you swim a race and think "I need to beat lane 1 and lane 5." (Yes, of course we are all trying to beat every lane.)
Also, If you breakout the top 24 seeds to swim together, given the example above using the 200 free, you would leave the 4th seeded man in the 30-34 age group swimming against 5th-11th seeds. That doesn't seem right to me. I'd be pissed if I were him - in fact, I'd probably make my entry time faster to ensure inclusion in the "fast" heats. I think this would become a problem and then you'd really see people not making their seed times...slippery slope!!
There's always prelims/finals but it appears that involves a lot of legistive tape, in addition to (1) making the meet longer, and (2) forcing people to swim an event twice. I swim all the 200's, and let me tell you, I was tired by my 6th event at Nationals (and it showed). I couldn't imagine swimming 10 or 12 events - I don't have the stamina of Michael Phelps! And, I'm guessing people in the more "experienced" age groups would hate swimming that many events even more than I would.
Bottom line: I'm fine with the way it is.
We swim all year being seeded by time only, even at Regionals. I think it's a nice change to be seeded by age groups for once and actually be in the pool racing the people you are competing against for medals.
Additionally, the age group seeding works for the vast majority of swimmers. While I respect the fact that Jeff would have liked to have swum next to Gary in the 100 IM, there is a pool full of other swimmers competing for 2nd-8th who all want to swim next to each other. Gary's race is the perfect example - although Gary won by over 2 seconds, less than 2 seconds seperated 2nd-10th place in that event. Plus, It's just not the same when you swim a race and think "I need to beat lane 1 and lane 5." (Yes, of course we are all trying to beat every lane.)
Also, If you breakout the top 24 seeds to swim together, given the example above using the 200 free, you would leave the 4th seeded man in the 30-34 age group swimming against 5th-11th seeds. That doesn't seem right to me. I'd be pissed if I were him - in fact, I'd probably make my entry time faster to ensure inclusion in the "fast" heats. I think this would become a problem and then you'd really see people not making their seed times...slippery slope!!
There's always prelims/finals but it appears that involves a lot of legistive tape, in addition to (1) making the meet longer, and (2) forcing people to swim an event twice. I swim all the 200's, and let me tell you, I was tired by my 6th event at Nationals (and it showed). I couldn't imagine swimming 10 or 12 events - I don't have the stamina of Michael Phelps! And, I'm guessing people in the more "experienced" age groups would hate swimming that many events even more than I would.
Bottom line: I'm fine with the way it is.
