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 . . .
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.
If anything it should decrease the length slightly. The total time is dictated by the slowest swimmer in the heat, not the fastest. The final three heats of each event should be shorter than they otherwise would be with this approach.
Having just started masters swimming and not having competed in a nationals yet, I am amazed to learn that competitors are seeded by age rather than time... If the objective is to swim your fastest, wouldn't you benefit from being in a heat with others of roughly similar speed?!
Bill- this stuff is always worth looking at, but I for one would not wish to be rewarded for top 24 with a chance to swim later. Could they not substitute a nice bottle of red instead?
Bill, thanks for your thoughts. Sometimes I wonder if I'm alone in proposing this situation.
I also thought a prelims/finals format would be great, but considering the length of an average day at nationals, it would be detrimental to those who swim finals.
I also thought a prelims/finals format would be great, but considering the length of an average day at nationals, it would be detrimental to those who swim finals.
That would require a rule change, as nationals must be run timed finals (USMS 102.10.1A). FINA rules require all meter competition to be timed finals as well (FINA MSW 3.4, USMS 102.10.1A). Not to mention the extreme issues with length of time given the number of age groups requiring seperate finals.
Has any masters meet ever been run prelims/finals? Given the number of age groups and required depth per age group (you'd need 2 heats full in every age group for every sex for every event just to make it worthwhile, otherwise you'd run the events timed finals), and the fact that the rule book is missing certain rules you'd want to run a prelims/finals meet (for example, there's nothing on circle seeding, which you need to seed a preliminary event), it just doesn't seem like anyone's ever tried it.
Patrick King
I was curious about how the age groups would fare in a seed by time format, so I chose an event from Federal Way and pulled out the top 24 times. I chose the event, the men's 200 free, at random, and used actual results rather than seeds, but it should correlate.
I got the following by age in the top 24:
18 - 24 (3)
25 - 29 (7)
30 - 34 (3)
35 - 39 (6)
40 - 44 (4)
45 - 49 (1)
So if seeding by time is desirable, maybe the seeding should be the top 8, or top 16, from 18 - 34; then top 8 or 16 from 35 - 49, etc. to give the older guys and gals a shot at swimming by time, too.
Or not.
I REALLY don't like the idea. World Masters Games in Edmonton was run that way. I was swimming against people I had never met,many of whom were no where near their seed times,some faster some slower. My main competition was in different heats.And there was situations like my friend Dave Radcliff swimming in an outside lane against 30 year olds and setting a World Record in the 70-74 age group.One could speculate that this helped pace him,but he finished 3rd in his heat with again faster seeds swimming slower and the top 2 guys going way under their seed time. The idea may have some validity for the lower age groups,but the fast older swimmers may be in outside lanes swimming with much younger swimmers who don't have as much experience and are likely to be less accurate with their seed times. Also I like to know if I won,I won,If I finished second I finished second,etc.
I'm kind of with Allen on this except that I feel anything 400m/500y or longer should be seeded by time.
I'm neutral on swimming it mixed sex although it does tend to add additional pressure.
How about a choice? I know Jim would like to swim by time because he, like Rich Abrahams and Jim McConica are so far ahead of the rest of the field that it makes sense for them to swim by time. I for one really like swimming against my age group - and would prefer to swim the 500 and 1000 against my age group as well.
If we were given a choice, Jim and Jim and Rich could swim by time and others could swim by age.
I am for swimming by time, but then I also swim long distance events most of the time. This year was the first time I had a real race in the 1500 with Jackie Marr and we both pushed eachother to great times. We are both looking forward to swimming in the same heat next year too.
Swimming by time also makes the meet go faster which at a national event is a good thing.
