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?"
Dennis Baker routinely swims the 500 free as fly in local meets.Everyone pretty much stops whatever they are doing to watch.I would be stunned if anyone has ever complained.In a good pool with good lane lines I doubt if one can feel any difference between swimming against a freestyler vs a flyer. As to the issue at hand ,if his coach didn't approve it,the kid was wrong.
While it is true that you can swim nearly anything you want for a freestyle event at a masters meet, how would you feel if you swam beside a petite 60 year old female going for a World Record in the 500 free, and you did fly? While no one may say anything to you directly, I'm sure you'd get plenty of unpleasant looks.
Why should it matter that she is going for a world record? Are other swims not important?
I have no plans to do a 500 fly but whether a petite 60 year old woman or a burly 30 year old man were in the next lane would have no bearing on my decision, unpleasant looks or not. if waves are a problem then perhaps the facility should invest in better lane lines and gutters.
FYI,at the Nats in 2007 the last event was the 4X50 free relay.We had 4 men total at the meet.We weren't going to be in the top 3,all of us were primarily breaststrokers,so we swam it BR.
Well, based upon the opinions shared here, I guess I won't be asking any of the swimmers in my heats at Santa Clara Nats to keep their pace under control and limit their wave making if at all possible. :)This made me change my view on this. Maybe with a LCM 50, but for 500 yards the adjacent swimmers had to drink much of the water he was stirring up
Well, based upon the opinions shared here, I guess I won't be asking any of the swimmers in my heats at Santa Clara Nats to keep their pace under control and limit their wave making if at all possible. :)
To me this is the whole point. It's obvious (by the coach's reaction) that the swimmer wasn't following team protocol. THAT was the issue. There's nothing wrong with swimming a 500 fly when you aren't affecting a team by doing so. My very young high school assistant coach had me swim a 500 breaststroke and my teammate swim 500 fly one year at a dual meet. We beat the other team's freestylers and he was in hot water after that. It made him (and our team) look like arrogant jerks - and he never made that mistake again.
Agree with gobears, she is sorightbears on this one. The point isn't that he swam it the legal "anything goes" in freestyle - it's that the behavior not acceptable customary dual meet protocol in this case. It may have been ok and cool with his competition, but it wasn't with the coach.
We can agree there are many hypotheticals and unknowns in this scenario.
Absolutely Guppy :) In a master's meet I'd be totally cool with this. In a HS Team meet the coach calls the shots and should be able to keep control of his/her swimmers. It's hard to say what was going on here but it's none of my business.
I actually am a high school coach and this is arrogant showboating at its worst or best. High school meets can be terribly lopsided and sportsmanship is the #1 priority. I had a relay ask me this year if they could do the 200 free as a 200 fly. I asked them how they would feel if another team were to do this to them. That kind of made it clear.
