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 My own AA-rescinded swim was done at Michael Phelps's famous pool, the North Baltimore Aquatics Club, in a meet that had a USMS sanction number.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Anyhow, if you have your own examples of TT or All American or even World Record times that were rescinded after the fact, please use this thread to post them!
Someone will always be unhappy no matter what policy you follow. And there will always be some inequities, I guess. Right now, USMS throws out times that are in pools that are 3/1000 short and keeps times that are from manual timing or with few officials.
Btw, I was at that MD meet as well. For fun, I swam a 50 meter backstroke kicking the whole way. I went about 40 meters UW and was not DQ'd.
Naturally, I don't disagree with the change for international meets. But next year, the Canadians won't measure the pool and times will be accepted. Just saying there is some inconsistency in our rules. FINA doesn't require measurements, right? Is Jim's time acceptable to FINA?
...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...
I have an honest question regarding the bolded above. If Mary Beth didn't have the measurements in hand before the lists were finalized, why wasn't the meet pulled before the lists were deemed "final"? I feel like there would be substantially less hand wringing if this had all been addressed before the lists were "finalized". I'm sure everyone who has paid attention has seen times go missing between the preliminary posting and the "final" posting. Obviously, no one on this thread (albeit not a large number of folks, but folks who pay attention typically) has ever seen times pulled after the "final" lists have been released. I understand the purpose of the errata, but as Leslie said above, the so-called scrivener's errors (and outright fraud) are different than this situation. Also, to be frank, the sanctioning wasn't the only failing in this situation.
i had a half dozen top ten removed our '11 zone SCM meet. but that was nothing compared to the TXLA guys having their crushing (by like 4secs) World Record erased. pool was measured, but was done in feet not meters and came up 2cm short.
DOH!!!
Sorry that I didn't allow for multiple answers to the poll question. I tried to go back and enable that feature, but I can't figure out how to do it. If anyone can advise me, I shall fix it. Thanks!
i had a half dozen top ten removed our '11 zone SCM meet. but that was nothing compared to the TXLA guys having their crushing (by like 4secs) World Record erased. pool was measured, but was done in feet not meters and came up 2cm short.
DOH!!!
2011 SCM was disappointing, we lost those relay WRs & I lost several individual top 10's and a couple #1's , but stuff happens. The pool length was short by the width of a touch pad.
in 2009 we broke the 4 x 100 FR scm relay rec but didn't get it because the paperwork wasn't submitted.
In 2008 a friend of mine lost a #1 time for the 200 back because the meet titled his event
"200 stroke of choice"
instead of
"200 IM, Back, Br, Fr or fly: Pick one"
Stuff happens, it sucks. People make mistakes. They feel awful about it when they do, (no need to grill them more)
There will be other seasons & I suggest swimmers swim a couple to several meets each season in case something like this happens.
Jim you just need to go through the 7 stages of Grief
I apologize if any of my screed came off as screaming or mean-spirited. I AM GENERALLY NOT A SCREAMER! I think of myself as actually more of a whisperer.
Many of our members are engineers and the like, which I am not, so what I propose as the "solution" to these ongoing snafus may be ludicrous from an engineering point of view, but I shall take a whack at it nonetheless:
1. Masters swimming is a messy world. You have big, medium, and tiny meets all across the country, in state-of-the-art pools and ancient ones. At some meets, the officials are highly professional, and the judges eagle-eyed. At other meets, to be honest, not so much. Some swims are electronically timed; others are hand-timed. Some meet directors are thoroughly up to date on the USMS rule book and its mind-boggling minutiae. Other meet directors don't know what the rules are and give the wrong advice. There is, in other words, a tremendous amount of variability in this system we call USMS swimming.
2. The Top 10 list is a way, first and foremost, of motivating adult swimmers to compete, and in the process, derive the various health and mental benefits that Ransom Arthur envisioned when he championed adult swimming in the first place. In an effort to be as inclusive as possible, USMS allows any swim performed in any venue in the country to count for TT consideration, as long as the rules are followed. You do not, therefore, need to be wealthy enough to travel to nationals to earn a spot in the Top 10--you can do it at a pool near to where you live, provided the competition is kosher according to USMS regulations.
3. So what are these regulations, and are they either too stringent, too loose, or just about right? I would argue, personally, that it's hard to argue that the regulations adopted by USA-S and FINA, which govern elite youth and international and Olympic swimming, are too loose. If USMS were to use these standards, one might argue it might even be a bit of overkill, given that masters swimmers--as enthusiastic and dedicated and committed as many of us are--are nevertheless not exactly comparable to Olympians per se (though there are more than a few ex-Olympians within our ranks.) This is not meant in any way to belittle masters swimming. But honestly, it's just not the same thing. It's not! In the Olympics, competition is the only thing that matters, and top swimmers are essentially professionals. In masters, competition is the icing on the cake, and even the legends in our ranks do it not as a job but as a sideline. The mission of USMS is to promote swimming for health, not just for competition. Thus I would argue that matching USA-S and FINA standards would be more than sufficient; but exceeding them, especially given how much variation there is in recreational pools across the country, and from region to region, seems crazy to me. In an earlier forum, Michael Heather wrote something along the lines of not accepting any times of his own that were swum in a pool even a millimeter short. Well, until laser technology came along, it was virtually impossible to measure pools to such detail. But there are so many other factors that influence speed in pools. Is an outdoor pool on a windy day that is 1-3 inches short of 50 meters long but only 4' - 6' deep significantly "faster" because of its reduced length than an indoor pool with state of the art lane ropes, gutters, starting blocks, etc. that is exactly 50 meters long and 9'-14' deep? I would argue that because it is easy, thanks to lasers, to measure a pool's length, and difficult, because there are no tools to specifically quantify such effects as depth and wind, etc., USMS has opted to give the illusion of unwavering standards by insisting on the former and overlooking the latter. As for electronic vs. hand timing, the choice to allow the latter seems so clearly a matter of expediency as to be risible. Surely, no one seriously argues that swimming 2-6" short per 100 LCM provides a significantly greater "cheating" advantage than hand-timing? Bottom line: if you have a messy system, you need to build in some flexibility in the letter of the law. I am not arguing against hand-timing, though I personally would rather see this banned than not. I'm just saying that if you allow something with a high probability of plus or minus variation from exactitude, why not permit the same reasonable flexibility for other aspects being measured? Why not go with FINA standards, in other words, with regards to pool measurements?
4. Finally, I suppose my biggest plea is simply this: If USMS has rules that it insists upon, then why can it not come up with a way to guarantee that any meet that receives its official sanction and/or recognition is guaranteed to be in compliance with all of these rules? You know how speed suits now have those little Fina Legal bar code things on the butt? Why couldn't USMS come up with a similar Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval-style logo that is posted on any meet where swimmers have a reasonable expectation that their times will count for TT consideration? Without this logo printed on the meet info sheet, swimmers would know whether or not to make the investment in meet fees, travel expenses, etc. and come anyway, knowing that their times may or may not "count." Such Super Sanctioned meets, moreover, would have provisions in place for measuring bulkhead movements, not holding any events as "Open" swims, and generally guaranteeing that any swimmer participating can't accidentally make the mistake of running afoul of some rule he or she might not know exists. I applaud Chris and the numerous other folks out there that make this great organization run, and I can already anticipate suggestions a la "volunteer yourself" or "buy the rule book and study each codicil in all its intricacies." Alas, I am not a volunteering type, at least when it comes to organizational behavior; nor do I have the head for regulatory minutiae. It is probably, therefore, unfair and even hypocritical of me to ask this, but ask it I do. Why can't USMS make it so that we swimmers can identify, quickly and reliably, what meets will absolutely count before we sign up for them? Then make sure, barring fraud on our part, they absolutely do count. There is just too much potential disappointment in this messy system the way it is right now.
PS I absolutely forgive and absolve Jill for the mistakes in the present circumstance and strongly suspect she was a victim of the NBAC pool people. But if my suggestion for a Super Sanction Logo had appeared on the meet info sheet, and every duck was thereby guaranteed to be in a row, all this could have been avoided. I am sure plenty of swimmers would have still attended the meet. But those of us who traveled to Baltimore only for a "last chance" assault on the TT's would have saved our time and money.
PS No. 2 As some of you may know, USMS sent their own engineers in December to measure the NBAC pool where I and many others raced last summer. The pool was completely drained around Halloween and was empty when the laser measurements were done. I don't know the ground temperature at the time of measurement. The combination of no hydrodynamic pressure pushing outwards on the walls may have made no difference whatsoever in the pool's length. On the other hand, water is heavy--a cubic foot alone weighs 62.42796 lb. Perhaps an engineer within our ranks could give an opinion on whether a 50 meter pool with 10 lanes and some depth (I don't know this figure exactly) might, when filled with seemingly a gazillion cubic feet of water, expand ever so slightly compared to its empty winter state? Balloons filled with water expand. Granted, cement is not the same as latex. But it's not the same as reinforced tungsten either. Again, it's a messy system, and insisting on exactitude in measurement is not the same as achieving it.
Proposed new USMS "Super Sanction" Meet seal:
7086
At the SPMS meet in Long Beach I noticed the lane lines were loose and told a referee.I was told they had to be loose or it risked moving the bulkhead.I don't know much about how they stabilize bulkheads,but there seems to be a potential for continuing issues with bulkhead pools.I think everyone but USMS says if it was measured once as OK it's OK. USMS says measure it before and after the meet.This means that a pool can be measured,sanctioned and still have the swims not count(which as I noted happened to me.)On the other hand we measure achievement to .01 sec.At the 2001 NW Zone meet that was disallowed a younger friend beat my ZR in the 50M BR by .01 sec.I felt bad for him to lose the time,but 1cm short in a 25M pool at that speed is worth about .01 sec.I don't have a suggestion on how to handle this,just that it is complicated.
I have had losses from several of the possibilities.I had an AA/ZR time lost because when they measured the bulk head after the meet it had shifted 1 cm in 3 lanes(5 of the lanes had their swims allowed.)I lost 3 TT times in the 2001 NW Zone meet where the pool was redone and the new tile was thicker than the old.This meet and the ensuing complaints/flame war about it led to the current USMS measuring rules as well as the current forum decorum rules(go back to the thread about that in early 2002 if you want a sample of true vitriol.)I also lost 2 TT times from a meet that was advertised as dual sanctioned,but wasn't. That one wasn't a big deal as I got better times in a later meet.
All of them ,especially the AA/ZR time seemed a big deal at the time.Now,thinking of them hardly raises my blood pressure.
Jim,I am so sorry.You are definitely the peoples All-American
Ah, yes, my home pool. You should have heard the conversations going on at the pool after, too!
