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 My own AA-rescinded swim was done at Michael Phelps's famous pool, the North Baltimore Aquatics Club, in a meet that had a USMS sanction number.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Anyhow, if you have your own examples of TT or All American or even World Record times that were rescinded after the fact, please use this thread to post them!
Steve, you are a real tech suit hater!
since tech suits ARE part of the WR/NR/TT i will respond on here.
speedo started this fiasco.
2% or 3% or 5% or 10% faster in full color full page ads in every magazine that was related to them selling suits.
usa-s/fina has ALWAYS had a rule that no device was allowed to aid the swimmer in any way, shape or form.
so either the suits did violate this rule and speedo's money and commercial money (ie olympic broadcasts) swayed fina to allow them
or
it was false advertising.
period.
pick 1
then when speedo got beat at their own game, they complained to fina to have them banned.
so then we could all pay almost the same price for a suit 1/3rd the size! (for men anyway)
at the olympic level only a very few of the mens records have fallen. lochte broke his own 200im (in a jammer) with a non-slick jammer and Sun broke the 1500. i think those are the only 2. oh, unless you might count the triple kick breaststrokers.
i hate them because they NEVER should have been allowed in the 1st place. or once allowed, never taken away.
the other sports (there are plenty to name) have had technology improvements and kept them. only swimming has been a yo-yo on the rules with technology.
rant off :D
Can you provide your source for this statement?
I think the fact that the rule was originally written to allow legal swims I'm foreign jurisdiction and was changed around 2010-11 to require all jurisdictions to comply with USMS measurement requirements AND has apparently been changed back to its original form ie. permitting Top 10 consideration of foreign swims legal in that jurisdiction leads me reasonably to believe that the committee considers the better course of action to be to allow those swims. My source is logic and commonsense. What do you think the reason for the change in policy is? They would not deliberately make a change for the worse?
By wrong, I mean there was a better course of action, I do not mean wrong in a moral or ethical sense.
Chris, I believe there should be some finality in the Top 10 list. To take a Top 10 time away from someone is difficult and once it is published (in December by rule ) a swimmer should be able to rely on it. In this case there are many extenuating circumstances. I doubt the pool is short when filled and the swim was by FAR the best if the year. The time should in fairness and logic stand. You have the authority to strike it if you want but to do so would be wrong.
since tech suits ARE part of the WR/NR/TT i will respond on here.
speedo started this fiasco.
2% or 3% or 5% or 10% faster in full color full page ads in every magazine that was related to them selling suits.
usa-s/fina has ALWAYS had a rule that no device was allowed to aid the swimmer in any way, shape or form.
so either the suits did violate this rule and speedo's money and commercial money (ie olympic broadcasts) swayed fina to allow them
or
it was false advertising.
period.
pick 1
then when speedo got beat at their own game, they complained to fina to have them banned.
so then we could all pay almost the same price for a suit 1/3rd the size! (for men anyway)
at the olympic level only a very few of the mens records have fallen. lochte broke his own 200im (in a jammer) with a non-slick jammer and Sun broke the 1500. i think those are the only 2. oh, unless you might count the triple kick breaststrokers.
i hate them because they NEVER should have been allowed in the 1st place. or once allowed, never taken away.
the other sports (there are plenty to name) have had technology improvements and kept them. only swimming has been a yo-yo on the rules with technology.
rant off :D
Very fine rant.
I loved the tech suits, and liked the idea that swimming technology, like other sports, could advance. However, the yoyo did muck up the record books (even for masters). And I do resent paying the same price for a flimsy suit that doesn't last long. (Having been an avid tech suit fan, I nonetheless note that I am doing better vis-a-vis my competitors without them. heehee)
Jack, I thought you were kidding on your first post! USMS has no choice but to apply the then existing rules to your times from 2011. And unlike poor Jim, you did not do your due diligence -- I reported on the forum that the Canadian meet director told me he would not measure the pool.
Since I lost 6, Top 10's in the 2011 Montreal Nationals, I am in favor of the above-captioned rule. So, Chris, you think that because there is no rule saying that you can not remove a Top 10 time after it has been approved and published, that USMS does have the authority and has it absolutely? I think that might be an open question. Why have a deadline if it is meaningless and can be disregarded? And, if that is true, can you change the 2011 SCM Top 10 to reflect my Montreal times? After all, there is no rule that says you can't do that either. Remember, the integrity of the sport is the most important thing and what's right is right!
So, do you want me to email you my times from Montreal, or can you pull them up on the internet?
I attended the 2012 Canadian Nationals, and knew about this very thing happening from 2011. I am a TTR for the Inland NW, and know about the rule of the measurements on bulkheaded pools (prior to the meet, and after each and every session of the meet, etc.). I had talked with a couple others who were going to be going to the meet as well, that would be concerned about the potential of their times counting for USMS TT. Chris Stevenson knew I was going to the meet as well, and did send me a note on this very subject about the measurement rules for TT.
After getting there, we basically decided to bag the idea, as it was going to be "too much" to try to hold everyone up while we attempted to measure for "our standards" in a foriegn country's meet. Yeah, I had some times swum there that would've been faster than times I did here, but oh well...it's just another meet, right? We had fun anyway. :)
So, to play devil's advocate here, do you guys think there should also be a statute of limitations on things like Olympic medals and Tour de France victories? Lance Armstrong shouldn't get his Tour victories and Olympic medal rescinded because they didn't realize he was cheating at the time?
Personally I think it sucks big time that Jim's All American swim got pulled, but rules are rules. It's the meet director's fault and not USMS's. Next summer when the pool is refilled it should be measured and if it it's legal his time should be reinstated, fair and square. If the pool still measures short then no dice.
While Jim and others like to portray USMS as heartless automatons characterized mostly by a slavish devotion to rules
I disagree with you, though, that there would have been resigned acceptance from Jim if the times from this meet had been missing from either the preliminary or final TT list. The outcry would have just begun a month earlier. And as an FYI, I didn't know about this situation until a couple days before Jim did.
I highly doubt Jim views USMS as "heartless." If you read his screed, you know that he's had several meets worth of times that have been thrown out in the last couple years. So he feels snakebit. I think this is a fairly normal reaction in the circumstances. (Remember She Man/CreamPuff who quit USMS, among other reasons, because she said her times never seemed to count?) To be sure, he would have been disappointed -- as would anyone -- if his time was missing or deleted from the preliminary TT list) and made inquiries. But as Mollie notes, we all know this can happen and Jim was worried it might. In fact, he waited until the the list was "final" before declaring himself an AA and writing a story for Men's Health about the experience. (Btw, that story would have been good publicity for USMS.)
Given our current rules, it doesn't seem like USMS had any choice but to pull the times in this instance given that the pool was short. But I don't see the problem in letting Jim express his frustration. He'll move on, and continue his self-described quest of sustained mediocrity. Hopefully, he'll grab another AA at some point.
Those swims could have been accepted in 2011 by a VOTE of the Top 10 committee. That committee has apparently determined that their decision in 2011, was wrong and not in the best interests of USMS and FINA.
Both of these statements are incorrect. The committee is not empowered to disregard the rules. We took a vote on whether to apply (to the Rules Committee) for an exception to the rule. The motion failed, narrowly as I recall. But if it had passed, the Rules Committee would have voted on whether to recommend the exception be granted and then the Board of Directors, or maybe the Executive Committee (I always confuse those two), would have had the final say.
We did not later decide we were wrong. We decided the rules should be changed and we proposed a change that applied to these circumstances (eligibility of swims for USMS TT when performed in foreign meets). The proposed rule was passed easily by the HOD.
Chris, I believe there should be some finality in the Top 10 list.
Fair enough, I think reasonable people can disagree on this point. And of course "some finality" needs to be defined a little more precisely. One possibility is to allow non-significant changes such as correcting club affiliation or incorrect names (eg if a swimmer's maiden name was used improperly). A significant change would be one that affects times or TT placement.
I will schedule a discussion on the matter for Records & Tabulation. It won't affect the decision in this case. And the committee may very well decide to continue current policy, but it is worth revisiting and discussing.
To take a Top 10 time away from someone is difficult and once it is published (in December by rule ) a swimmer should be able to rely on it. In this case there are many extenuating circumstances. I doubt the pool is short when filled and the swim was by FAR the best if the year. The time should in fairness and logic stand. You have the authority to strike it if you want but to do so would be wrong.
"I doubt the pool is short when filled" -- there is no evidence for this statement; if there were (in the form of actual measurements) then we wouldn't be having this discussion. In fact, there is evidence for the opposite in that the pool length has never been certified by USA-S.
This isn't just about Jim Thornton's swim, others are affected as well. For every top 10 time that was "taken," another was "given" (ie the total number of TT times stayed the same). One could also argue that it isn't fair for someone's time to be displaced from the TT lists by a swim performed in a short pool. Ultimately I think that is the most compelling argument in these admittedly-less-than-ideal circumstances.
Changing the times after the "final" lists was disconcerting and in retrospect (with all the advantages of Monday-morning quarterbacking) perhaps Mary Beth should not have included those times in either preliminary or final lists. But in my opinion this was not the main problem because it was fixable after the fact, though this is not ideal. It was sanctioning the meet in the first place without the measurements in hand. It was an understandable error given the circumstances but one we can learn from and hopefully avoid in the future.
Next summer when the pool is refilled it should be measured and if it it's legal his time should be reinstated, fair and square.
Yes, no one else seemed to notice this flip side of the "non-frozen" aspect of the TT list.
