How does your club decide who swims what relays for local or championship meets? What criteria are used, and who organizes relays at meets? How are decisions made on what swimmers get to swim and what ones don't?
One of our swimmers developed a computer program to come up with the fastest relay for each age group. Then it is just a matter of convincing people to swim them.
At local meets, swimmers usually form their own relays. However, at a small local meet in early November, we had someone designated to help new swimmers become part of a relay.
Last week at a meet at George Mason, one team member took the initiative to involve everyone interested on relays.
For Zones or Nationals, we are more organized. A notice is put in the newsletter to let one or two people know if you are available for relays or if you do not want to do a specific relay. When the team rosters are available, two or three swimmers in different age groups will work on relays for given age groups. One person will compile all suggestions. Approximately 1 week before the meet, tentative relays are emailed to everyone attending the meet. Swimmers can then let the coordinator know if they have suggestions for improvement or if they do not want to swim a given relay. Relays are posted at the meet and changes are made right up to time to step on the block.
At Zones, it is particularly hectic, but always fun.
One of our swimmers developed a computer program to come up with the fastest relay for each age group. Then it is just a matter of convincing people to swim them.
So that's why we call them the Oregon Relay Team. It does make it easier at your meets that everyone swims as "OREG" rather than their workout groups. If people were all associated as their workout groups, this is harder to accomplish.
In the Inland NW, we swim all our relays by workout group, with our workout groups battling it out for a season-long points championship at the end of the SCY season.
One of our swimmers developed a computer program to come up with the fastest relay for each age group. Then it is just a matter of convincing people to swim them.
It's a well known problem (unbalanced assignment problem) in Operations Research that can be solved by a number of algorithms. For a simple example, say a medley relay, you have four swimmers and estimates of their times for each stroke. One minimizes the overall time for the relay by picking the combination of the smallest sum of times. For more swimmers and missing data, the problem becomes slightly more complicated - but solvable in a reasonable amount of time.
Of course, such an algorithm does not take into account intangibles - such as good will, participation (giving everyone a chance to swim on a relay) and of course, the swimmer who swims much faster (slower) in a relay situation as opposed to an individual event.
It would be cool to create a program that optimizes a dual meet line up.
The fastest possible relay is not always the one that will place best or have the highest TT ranking. Sometimes it is better strategically to have a slower relay in an older age group. Or even a younger age-group: in SCY, for example, the 18+ relays are often slower than the 25+ versions. Or there may be fewer of them, so you are guaranteed a higher placing.
My workout group has this very issue, we have lots of older swimmers who aren't necessarily very quick against the clock. But they swim, compete, have fun, and that's where it's at. We end up winning a lot of the relays we swim, mainly because we don't see a lot of 55+ or 65+ competition in our LMSC. I get excluded from relays quite often even though I'm the fastest in the group. But my age always would bring down our relay competition age to the 25+ (or now 35+) age group. I'm now included more now that I'm 35. :cake: Sometimes it's nice to get older.
The fastest possible relay is not always the one that will place best or have the highest TT ranking. Sometimes it is better strategically to have a slower relay in an older age group. Or even a younger age-group: in SCY, for example, the 18+ relays are often slower than the 25+ versions. Or there may be fewer of them, so you are guaranteed a higher placing.
There are indeed MANY intangibles and putting relays together for large teams can be a little frustrating at times. Some people want to swim in many relays; others only want to swim in a few. Some specify they want to swim in "fast" relays (ie, ones that have some possibility of scoring). Some people want to lead off certain relays to get an official time thru a split request. Sometimes that leads to arguments among relay members (Betsy will remember one such incident). Some people get their pride pricked if they are on a "B" relay instead of the "A" relay.
When I help put relays together for VMST I usually use a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's age, gender and estimated split times. Then you collect information from people about which relays they are willing to swim, and how many relays total they are willing to do. Two complicating factors: not everyone responds to the emails requesting that information, and also some people either don't show up at the meet, or they show up at the meet and want to do something different than what they said.
Another factor, and not everyone will agree on this: I think everyone should be involved in relays unless they specifically request not to do so. When VMST won nationals in Atlanta, I had several of the slower swimmers (who didn't score in individual events) come up and thank me for including them in relays. It made them feel like part of the team effort. But sometimes that leads to resentment from faster swimmers who are "saddled" with slower swimmers on their relays.
I also have received complaints from gung-ho team scoring types who feel like we should field the maximum number of relays, with each person swimming two (or more if possible) relays per session. I personally never try to hit the maximum number of relays, opting for a middle ground so that people who focus also on their individual races won't feel like they are getting too tired from being on a lot of relays.
But -- to be clear -- most people are very good sports about it and participate in relays in the true "masters" spirit.
We have two workout groups and between both we will bring 8 to 12 people to most local meets. I grab times off of the meet database and seed times from the coach of the other group.
I put them together and run them past the other coach. Everyone knows to expect to be in relays and only once did a person not necessarily want to do it.
As pointed out earlier, the best scoring chances for us are in 18+ 25+ and 55+ relays. Also the 800 free relay is one everyone knows they will be called on to swim.
When setting up the relays my main rule is everyone gets in a relay if it is at all possible. Secondly, I put together the fastest I can.
Usually we have one A relay and another participation relay. All the faster swimmers know that from time to time they will be swimming on a participation relay. But they all know I do my best to work everyone in and they know next time it will be their turn.
