distance swimmers shorted

From Page 31: Quote 3) Full days on the schedule may be interchanged so that the 400/500 freestyle and the 1500/1650 freestyle shall not be swum on consecutive days This must be an old rule developed when they thought old people would die swimming a 400/500 the day after a 1500/1650. We've (championship committee) discussed possibly changing this to afford more flexibility in scheduling event lineups. At least in order to let the swimmer decide to swim/not swim and not legislate the decision.

This must be an old rule developed when they thought old people would die swimming a 400/500 the day after a 1500/1650. We've (championship committee) discussed possibly changing this to afford more flexibility in scheduling event lineups. At least in order to let the swimmer decide to swim/not swim and not legislate the decision. Glad to hear it! That rule did seem strange to me when I saw it there.

This must be an old rule developed when they thought old people would die swimming a 400/500 the day after a 1500/1650. We've (championship committee) discussed possibly changing this to afford more flexibility in scheduling event lineups. At least in order to let the swimmer decide to swim/not swim and not legislate the decision. Glad to hear it! That rule did seem strange to me when I saw it there. Yes, especially when they put the 400 IM the day after the 1000/1650 and that's a way tougher event than the 500.

My preferred 4 day race format at Nationals would be something like: Day 1 - 1000 free Day 2 - 400 IM and 200 free Day 3 - 500 free and 200 IM Day 4 - 1650 free Wait....no 200 Fly!!???!?? :D

I look at it completely in reverse -- why screw up the rest of my meet by trashing myself on the 1650 on the 1st day of the meet? When I return to distance events this fall and spring, I'll almost for sure enter the 1000 on the 1st day of Nationals because it takes so much less out of me than the 1650 (primarily because I still don't train enough to effectively race either!). My preferred 4 day race format at Nationals would be something like: Day 1 - 1000 free Day 2 - 400 IM and 200 free Day 3 - 500 free and 200 IM Day 4 - 1650 free You can easily find USAS meets that have a format similar to this ... This gets my vote, the one that matters since I started all this, lmao

I have to say the idea of swimming a 1500 or 1650 as the last event of a meet sounds awful. I kind of like getting the distance events done with the first day. I guess I'm not a real distance swimmer because I don't understand the appeal of wanting to swim both distance events! :) There are a lot of good pro and con arguments on this thread but this is the one I basically side with. Waiting until the last day to swim the hardest event would be awful. While I occasionally grumble about not getting both the 1650 and 1000 I do really enjoy the distance only day. It is much less crowded and there's a calm at the pool. Then, we know the meathead sprinters and chest thumpers will show up Friday through Sunday, prance around, whine about only getting 3 hours rest between events, and do their thing.

So let's use 2008 (Portland) as an example. The projected ending times were: Thursday: 9:20pm Friday: 6:40pm Saturday: 8:40pm Sunday: 5:50pm If you shuffled the events around and added the couple to three extra hours for those who picked both distance events, how would you do it? And I seem to recall Thursday ending later than that (I was counting for someone). And this was west-coast time, too: I was counting for someone who was basically swimming at almost 1am by his internal clock. And this is WITHOUT allowing distance swimmers to double up. There are options but they are also unpalatable for many. For example: -- You HAVE to have NQTs to enter any event, period. -- Allow distance swimmers to enter both, but set a cap on the number of entries that are accepted. -- Make the distance NQTs harder and insist that they must be met by entrants in those events. Others have given suggestions. I may be mistaken, but I think that any solution would generate more complaints than we have right now. And most discriminate in some way against distance swimmers. Kirk mentioned that there is a perception that distance swimmers take more than their "fair share" of competition time. I don't know about fair, but the plain fact is that distance events take longer to swim and it is harder to fit them in.

There are options but they are also unpalatable for many. For example: -- You HAVE to have NQTs to enter any event, period. -- Allow distance swimmers to enter both, but set a cap on the number of entries that are accepted. -- Make the distance NQTs harder and insist that they must be met by entrants in those events. Chris: This is a really good list. I am of the opinion that you should be limited to 1 or 2 events you don't have an NQT in, not the current 3+ format. The offset to this is that the past few short course nationals have been run so well that the timeline wasn't an issue. I don't know why we couldn't swap the 1000 and 500. I don't know how that would impact a meet, however. The NQTs for distance are relatively easy as compared to other events. I agree they should be tightened up and policed better.

Kirk mentioned that there is a perception that distance swimmers take more than their "fair share" of competition time. I don't think there is the way the meet is currently scheduled, but I think there would be if swimmers were forced to forfeit other events if entering both distance events.

There are a lot of good pro and con arguments on this thread but this is the one I basically side with. Me too. I mean, I have swum both the 800/1000 and the 1500/1650 in the same multi-day meet, but I am not sure I have ever raced both and I am very sure I have never raced both well. When I have room in my life for a swim "season," one or the other of these events is pretty much always going to be my focus event in my focus meet, which is why I want it on the first day and why I would not plan to race the other one in the same meet anyway.