Though this topic has received some attention in various threads over the years, it is the dead of winter, and I think that those of us in the Northeast, at least, could do with a little blood boiling to warm up the extremities!
To this end, I am wondering how many of my fellow swimmers have had swim times disallowed ex post facto in USMS sanctioned meets, and if so, for what reason?
As some of you who read my blog may recall, I have had a number of TT-worthy times disallowed for various reasons over the years, ranging from lack of timeliness in submitting the paperwork, to swimming a couple races in the "Open" category.
Recently, I have had my first and only All American swim retroactively yanked, some five weeks after the Top 10 list was officially published. Obviously, this is not as bad as those unfortunate souls who have had World Records declared ineligible for consideration.
Nevertheless, it does sting. I invite you to read the details of my De-All'ing (from my perspective) here: byjimthornton.com/.../
Note: I do not question the right of USMS to have rules more stringent than USA-S and FINA. What I do believe is unfair to us swimmers is when these rules apply to us but not to those in charge of making sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed when they secure sanctions for meets and collect the meet fees. My own AA-rescinded swim was done at Michael Phelps's famous pool, the North Baltimore Aquatics Club, in a meet that had a USMS sanction number. Skip Thompson, who traveled from Michigan to swim in this meet, told me he asked about the pool measurement and was told that it was on file. There were no bulkheads involved. I did not make the mistake of swimming in an "open" event. I feel I did everything right this time!
I also feel that the USMS rule book is so dense and complex that it's hopeless for swimmers to know if they are complying. I feel like the mole in a game of bureaucratic whack-a-mole!
Anyhow, if you have your own examples of TT or All American or even World Record times that were rescinded after the fact, please use this thread to post them!
What I find most objectionable, is the ex post facto removal of an TT/AA time that was declared "official" after preliminary times were released and a correction period ensued. Jim did his due diligence and did his level best not to get his hopes up until the list was declared final. If a swim gets through the whole process without being flagged as having missing paperwork or whatnot, why is that the swimmer's fault? If the powers that be don't catch it during the fairly lengthy TT vetting process, it seems cruel to yank it later. Is this really necessary? And is this retroactive yanking of official times provided for in the rule book?
So the main deadline is for submission of times for TT consideration; times are not accepted after that deadline for any reason (and there have been stories of entire LMSCs whose times were refused over this). That is the only TT-related deadline in the rule book that I know about.
The "correction" period and all that is pure policy, not rules, which is set by the Records and Tabulation Committee and approved by the Board of Directors. This is done purely in an attempt to improve the accuracy of the lists, and mistakes are indeed caught all the time. No such correction period is required by the rules nor is there any rule saying that TT lists are frozen once published. While times cannot be added after the deadline, they can be (and have been) taken away. Other corrections that are made are things like club affiliation, incorrect names, and so forth.
Top 10 lists get corrected after the "official" publications quite often. Go to
www.usms.org/.../top10print
and you'll see links to Errata. It is admittedly unusual that an entire meet gets pulled; I'm not sure that it has been done before, but I haven't been around as some others. I do know of at least one situation where a person was found to have falsified his age and all his TT times (including relays) and USMS records were erased retroactively.
If electronic timing were required for every meet, there would be fewer local in season meets.
Yes, I strongly suspect this is the reason that manual timing is allowed, so that there can be more meets in facilities that do not have touchpads or meet hosts who cannot afford to rent them.
Does a pool to have to have a measurement on file for the meet to get a USMS sanction? I would assume no since bulkhead pools always have to be measured.
Technically no. But if a pool is known to be too short then the LMSC is required to put a notice on the meet form that the times will not be eligible for consideration for TT or records.
Some LMSCs (Virginia is one of them) have made it their own policy where they will not sanction or even recognize a meet if the pool is known to be too short.
Of course, if the pool has a bulkhead and the host fails to measure it, then the times are not eligible for TT even if the meet info sheet said that they would be.
You guys are mostly missing the problem. The failing here was in sanctioning the meet in the first place without the measurements in hand. The sanctions chair was assured by the facility manager that those measurements were on file and that the pool was the proper length. And as people have said, this was Michael Phelps' pool so she assumed it must be okay.
It was a mistake though perhaps an understandable one -- Michael Phelps' pool! -- we're all only human. The meet was sanctioned and held.
Similarly the Top 10 Recorder, when submitting the LMSC times to Mary Beth for TT consideration, assured her that the measurements were forthcoming. Everyone assumed they would be okay, so Mary Beth proceeded under that assumption.
Week after week of asking for those measurements went unanswered. Some local masters swimmers even asked some age-groupers who swim at NBAC to ask for the measurements; they were told to stop asking. USA Swimming said that the pool was not on their list of approved pools (and unlike USMS, they do not keep their rejected applications so we don't know if they ever submitted a certification form to USA-S).
So finally the LMSC chair sent their own engineer and the pool was measured way too short (an average of 3 inches, which is a lot). We have never received any measurements to contradict that so to the best of our knowledge the pool is too short and the times from the meet were pulled.
Yes this is a very frustrating situation all around. The sanctions chair obviously feels awful and there will never be another meet at that pool again.
But USMS long ago, for whatever reasons, decided that pool measurements were important. This isn't some small, secretive group of people making this decision: hundreds of delegates voted on these rules and can presumably vote them off the island if they so choose.
It isn't really my place to say whether the measurement rules are right or wrong, but I can absolutely guarantee one thing: for every person who would be happy if times from a pool KNOWN to be short were allowed to stand, there would be at least two other people who would complain about their times being bumped from TT by those times.
What I find most objectionable, is the ex post facto removal of an TT/AA time that was declared "official" after preliminary times were released and a correction period ensued. Jim did his due diligence and did his level best not to get his hopes up until the list was declared final. If a swim gets through the whole process without being flagged as having missing paperwork or whatnot, why is that the swimmer's fault? If the powers that be don't catch it during the fairly lengthy TT vetting process, it seems cruel to yank it later. Is this really necessary? And is this retroactive yanking of official times provided for in the rule book?
So the main deadline is for submission of times for TT consideration; times are not accepted after that deadline for any reason (and there have been stories of entire LMSCs whose times were refused over this). That is the only TT-related deadline in the rule book that I know about.
The "correction" period and all that is pure policy, not rules, which is set by the Records and Tabulation Committee and approved by the Board of Directors. This is done purely in an attempt to improve the accuracy of the lists, and mistakes are indeed caught all the time. No such correction period is required by the rules nor is there any rule saying that TT lists are frozen once published. While times cannot be added after the deadline, they can be (and have been) taken away. Other corrections that are made are things like club affiliation, incorrect names, and so forth.
Top 10 lists get corrected after the "official" publications quite often. Go to
www.usms.org/.../top10print
and you'll see links to Errata. It is admittedly unusual that an entire meet gets pulled; I'm not sure that it has been done before, but I haven't been around as some others. I do know of at least one situation where a person was found to have falsified his age and all his TT times (including relays) and USMS records were erased retroactively.
If electronic timing were required for every meet, there would be fewer local in season meets.
Yes, I strongly suspect this is the reason that manual timing is allowed, so that there can be more meets in facilities that do not have touchpads or meet hosts who cannot afford to rent them.
Does a pool to have to have a measurement on file for the meet to get a USMS sanction? I would assume no since bulkhead pools always have to be measured.
Technically no. But if a pool is known to be too short then the LMSC is required to put a notice on the meet form that the times will not be eligible for consideration for TT or records.
Some LMSCs (Virginia is one of them) have made it their own policy where they will not sanction or even recognize a meet if the pool is known to be too short.
Of course, if the pool has a bulkhead and the host fails to measure it, then the times are not eligible for TT even if the meet info sheet said that they would be.
You guys are mostly missing the problem. The failing here was in sanctioning the meet in the first place without the measurements in hand. The sanctions chair was assured by the facility manager that those measurements were on file and that the pool was the proper length. And as people have said, this was Michael Phelps' pool so she assumed it must be okay.
It was a mistake though perhaps an understandable one -- Michael Phelps' pool! -- we're all only human. The meet was sanctioned and held.
Similarly the Top 10 Recorder, when submitting the LMSC times to Mary Beth for TT consideration, assured her that the measurements were forthcoming. Everyone assumed they would be okay, so Mary Beth proceeded under that assumption.
Week after week of asking for those measurements went unanswered. Some local masters swimmers even asked some age-groupers who swim at NBAC to ask for the measurements; they were told to stop asking. USA Swimming said that the pool was not on their list of approved pools (and unlike USMS, they do not keep their rejected applications so we don't know if they ever submitted a certification form to USA-S).
So finally the LMSC chair sent their own engineer and the pool was measured way too short (an average of 3 inches, which is a lot). We have never received any measurements to contradict that so to the best of our knowledge the pool is too short and the times from the meet were pulled.
Yes this is a very frustrating situation all around. The sanctions chair obviously feels awful and there will never be another meet at that pool again.
But USMS long ago, for whatever reasons, decided that pool measurements were important. This isn't some small, secretive group of people making this decision: hundreds of delegates voted on these rules and can presumably vote them off the island if they so choose.
It isn't really my place to say whether the measurement rules are right or wrong, but I can absolutely guarantee one thing: for every person who would be happy if times from a pool KNOWN to be short were allowed to stand, there would be at least two other people who would complain about their times being bumped from TT by those times.
