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 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!
