What a great four days in Santa Clara! Hats off to all the Santa Clara Swim Club and USMS volunteers who made this huge event happen. While it was a HUGE meet, the facility and the people were up to the task at hand. It never felt as crowded as I had thought it would, even in the warmup pools pre & post events.
Two suggestions, though, for USMS to consider moving forward at Nationals:
Require positive check-in for all events ... or, at least, all distances 200 and above. Beyond the timeline effects of this, having full heats makes for better racing. It was notable the difference between many empty lanes in the 200 fly on Saturday versus the packed heats on Sunday's 200 free and 200 IM.
Ditch the printed program - save trees, cost, volunteer time, etc. With Meet Mobile and/or 5-10 copies of the heats printed around the pool deck, the printed program seems like an expensive anachronism.
I think these are both suggestions worthy of consideration. As far as the printed program, maybe this should be an option when entering? Like a check box on the entry form specifying you don't want a printed program. Personally I didn't even take mine with me to the meet. I left it in the hotel room.
And I second the kudos to SCSC and USMS. Great meet!
I agree with congratulating all involved in making the meet work.It was a monumental task and went off relatively smoothly. I also want to thank the 2 ducks who landed in the pool between heats of the 200 BR for livening things up.
E
What a great overview video of short-course nationals at Santa Clara on facebook!
H
I don't understand the rules of this game, but I'm not letting that stop me.
