Seeding - Seed Time vs Actual Time

Not quite the same but along a similar vein - what do you guys think about swimmers using longer events for a split time? For example swimming a 50M max, then 150M or 350M recovery? I've done this a few times when I've wanted a couple of attempts at fast times. I guess it can be disconcerting for swimmers in adjacent lanes. I always tell the meet organisers, and officials if I'm going to do it, and swimmers nearby if they are willing to make eye contact.... There are instances where masters swimmers might enter times faster than world/national records - records have to be set at masters meets, but some masters swimmers may have swum quicker in non-masters meets?

I just don't get it. :dunno: I returned to the competitive swimming world at the end of September and have entered every event with an estimated time. Every time, I beat the estimated time but not (I think) by a ridiculous margin, though if I'd been feeling well enough to actually race my 1650 in my last meet it probably would have been. The meets here are small enough that it seems times don't really matter (i.e. there's always been someone slower than me). I would rather be in a heat with people a little bit faster than me to push me along than win my heat. I always think of my first experience swimming the 500 when I was about 11. I was entered in a C meet with no time, which was the truth and since I'd never swum anything like it before we really had no idea how it would go. I absolutely blew the competition away - not just my heat but the whole field. I think I met the AA standard so I didn't get a ribbon - which was fine with me. What stuck with me was hearing one of the girls in my heat complain that I'd left the deck before she finished. I felt really bad about that - I'd never finished that far ahead of anyone and didn't even consider that it might be considered bad sportsmanship. I apologized but I don't think it made her feel better. :sad:

I guess another corollary to this is why does USMS seed distance events slow-to-fast? All the USA Swimming meets I go to seed them fast-to-slow. If the events were seeded like this I bet the sandbagging problem would be greatly reduced. You could have the reverse then... people seeding too fast. This doesn't really happen frequently enough imo to worry about. The way I look at it is... I don't really care what heat someone tries to beat me in... I'm gonna smoke them either way ;) (yes, I'm competitive) :angel:

Bill, there is the wild range of entries that you will see. from those sandbaggers that knowingly enter vastly slower times than what they will go to those that unknowingly do this to those that enter at or better than the World Record (yes this happened in Italy this summer). of course there is also the multitudes (almost 60 in each of my age groups events in Italy as an example) that entered and could not even make the cutoff time. thus making a long running big meet last 16+ hrs every day for a week. in the end, don't we all strive for going faster than our entry time even if seed time is your best ever? Every time I have seen someone enter an impossibly fast time it has been a mistake. Usually a typo or entering their 50m time in a 100m event for example. Once a very inexperienced swimmer on my team decided to swim the 200 free so they took their 50 free time and just multiplied it by 4.

Perhaps we could use an online lane selector for meets similar to what the airlines use for seat selection. Choose your heat and your lane in advance. The host could charge a bit more for the prime lanes and heats.This is a great idea, as long as there are frequent flyer awards to get upgrades. Even better than choosing your lane and heat, is choosing who is in the lane(s) next to you. The meet host could make extra money (take the airline change fee of $150 and divide by $100 for $1.50 charge per move) by charging every time you switch your lane. Something like this: Two weeks before the entry deadline, I enter the 400 free and really want to swim next to a certain individual. I choose the last heat, lane 4 and pay my $4 basic event entry fee. A week before the entry deadline, I notice that this individual has decided he wants to swim in heat 1, so I pay a $1.50 change fee to move myself to the lane next to him. The next day, he's apparently not keen on that, so he moves to heat 2 and grabs the last open lane there. Chalk up another $1.50 change fee for the meet organizers. Now, I'm faced with a dilemma as my move is going to cost me two fees: $1.50 change fee An auction amount to be determined by the swimmer currently in the lane I want to be in. I decide to make the move and negotiate a $10 fee with that swimmer so that we swap lanes. Per the rules of the game, that swimmer then gets to keep half as a credit to their entry fees and the meet host gets the other half. This games-man-ship goes on and on right up until the deadline, all supported by an online program (we'll ask TeamUnify or SwimPhone to build it) so that, by the end of it all, this competitor and I have each paid multiple change fees and "swimmer swap" fees, making the meet host lots of money so that they can then throw an awesome kegger at the end of the meet (or, maybe, buy new EneyBuoys for the team).

Let's just say I am glad not every swimmer at a meet like Nationals has this attitude. If they did, we'd never get out of there! Perhaps we should ask everybody their flight schedules, gather their sleep patterns, etc. and let everybody swim to what works best for them. Even faster and less confusing yet would be making all meets postals --just mail in your event time and the lowest time wins the event. This way there would be no problems with seed times, potential sand bagging, slow pools, event order, time between events, or long meets and your medal would arrive in the mail if you picked (err swam) the fastest time. Mailing in negative times for an event would not be allowed (only negative splits). :D The rules regarding seed times are very simple - to the extent possible, try to follow the rules whenever you can for the sake of the rest of this swimming community.

How do you folks feel about persons who misrepresent him/her self in this manner? If it were up to me, they would be DQ'd, the timer and backup watches would be stopped for their lane. We have a distance meet here and it totally screws up the timeline of the meet and drives me bananas. Typically we will get the heat sheets the day before. It will say session starts at 8 AM, session 2 at 12:00 PM. Then with regularity session 2 will start 60 to 90 minutes early because of idiots like these people and the people who don't show up.

Even faster and less confusing yet would be making all meets postals.... I know I elided your smiley, but for some events a postal-like setup (or at least a "satellite" meet setup) might be a good idea. Here in Illinois, the distance events for the state meet (1000 or 1650 on alternating years) are held the afternoon/evening before the rest of the weekend's swims. Holding two or three small regional distance meets around the state at (approximately?) the same time would mean some people could travel less (or at least save on the cost of an extra night in a hotel). You might be able to open up the distance events to more swimmers as well, or push the 400IM out to those satellite meets. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. Just think. It will allow the sandbaggers to bag more sand, or Gull to implement his free-lanes-for-all program, or pwb to retire with the profits from his lane-upgrade program. :D

PWB, i'll let you swim next to me for free! :D :D :D :D :D

PWB, i'll let you swim next to me for free! :D :D :D :D :DSee you in Indy? We can discuss entry times offline ;)