A kid swam the 500 all fly in a high school dual meet yesterday. His coach was furious and benched him for the rest of the meet. One of my lane mates this morning, who was the Starter at this meet said that was showboating and demeaning to the other competitors. I disagree. Was that any more demeaning than swimming free and lapping people? Plus, I saw the flyer ask everyone in the heat if it would bother them. Even on the blocks he said "Are you sure you guys are OK with this?"
If you have an issue with sportsmanship or showboating, please solve this dilemma for me: High school meet where I know the opposing team does not have any year round club swimmers. If I challenge myself, I will lap all of them. How embarrasing for them. Should I back off and just win comfortably? But I would clearly be loafing while winning. That would be demeaning and belittling to them and pretentious on my part.
I see a bunch of posts in this thread addressing exactly this "dilemma." They all say, as did the starter who discussed the issue with you, that the consensus among experienced high school coaches and officials is that swimming the 500 using some stroke other than the front crawl is not an acceptable solution but instead crosses the line into arrogant showboating.
If you have an issue with sportsmanship or showboating, please solve this dilemma for me: High school meet where I know the opposing team does not have any year round club swimmers. If I challenge myself, I will lap all of them. How embarrasing for them. Should I back off and just win comfortably? But I would clearly be loafing while winning. That would be demeaning and belittling to them and pretentious on my part.
I see a bunch of posts in this thread addressing exactly this "dilemma." They all say, as did the starter who discussed the issue with you, that the consensus among experienced high school coaches and officials is that swimming the 500 using some stroke other than the front crawl is not an acceptable solution but instead crosses the line into arrogant showboating.
