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 . . .
Jim has reiterated my point. The entire meet would be seeded by time, not just the top 24. This is not a plot to benefit only the fastest swimmers.
Update: I suppose I'm wondering why no one makes a fuss about not swimming with your competition in the distance events. The situation would be the same.
If you're in the 500 free and you are in a heat preceding your rival, generally you get out and watch his or her swim to find out if he or she went faster. Or your coach will have written down the times of the people in your age group.
Am I missing something, or would the situation be different for the shorter races? Doesn't seem so.
Jim has reiterated my point. The entire meet would be seeded by time, not just the top 24. This is not a plot to benefit only the fastest swimmers.
Update: I suppose I'm wondering why no one makes a fuss about not swimming with your competition in the distance events. The situation would be the same.
If you're in the 500 free and you are in a heat preceding your rival, generally you get out and watch his or her swim to find out if he or she went faster. Or your coach will have written down the times of the people in your age group.
Am I missing something, or would the situation be different for the shorter races? Doesn't seem so.
