Aside from the affected meet hosts, the real losers of this dilemma are the swimmers from the two affected SCM meets who stand to lose their placing in the USMS Top Ten. In short order, R&T will release the 2001 SCM Top Ten and we’ll discover who was denied placement on the list because their worthy performances were conducted in pools they believed were legitimate for sanctioned competition.
I do not yet know if I will be one of those people, but I expect to be. You might remember the story of my 1500m Freestyle that turned into the 1550m Freestyle (or rather the 1498.7m Freestyle that was the 1548.68m Freestyle) at the NWZ meet. My time was 19:04.76, a 50-second improvement from my previous lifetime best. (The 19:55 swim as well as a 20:05 swim both put me into the SCM Top Ten in those years)
Many folks in the discussion forums have sounded off about how important they view the Top-Ten rankings. I’ll simply say that in my case, if I had been told by the meet director before my 1500m Freestyle that the pool was less than 25m long, I probably would not have swam the event. There was no other swimmer in my age group at the NWZ meet. My “competition” was the other 30-34-year-olds nationwide.
The impending ruling by the EC could very likely demand that I and other swimmers at the affected SCM meets make a sacrifice for the betterment of USMS. Honestly, I do not know what greater good is supposed to result from locking out certain swimmers from the Top Ten. I do not even know if this sacrifice is even necessary.
The EC certainly is considering the relationship between USMS and its swimmers in making its judgment. It is inevitable that some swimmers will be affected negatively by whatever “final” decision the EC renders. My contention through all of this has been that (1) deserving swimmers ought to be appropriately recognized for there outstanding achievements, and (2) that if we must do harm to swimmers and strain the USMS-to-swimmer relationship, we affect the least amount of harm upon the least number of swimmers. I’m glad that we are soon to be bringing this matter to a close, but I do think that this decision does harm to more people than necessary, as well as to the wrong people.
If it turns out that the 10th place 30-34 swimmer went slower than 19:04.76, I will be happy to congratulate him publicly and acknowledge that he earned his position. If there is any kind of positive outcome from all of this that I can guarantee, this is it.
To many the real essesnce of competitive swimming is speed over distance or time and distance. There are many things than can affect a swimmers performance:the depth of the pool, the altitude of pool, temperature, the height of the backstroke flags , what the swimmer ate or did the eat the night before - all of them will performance. But when we look at results, we are just looking at how fast the swimmer traveled over a given distance.
If a distance of 24.98 meters is allowed, isnt that the new baseline for the 25 meter distance. And if 24.98 is allowed what happens when a pool comes in at 24.97 it is just a centimeter shorter. When do we draw the line?
I have seen an instance where in a relay the second swimmer jumped early- could not have been more than a tenth or two tenths of a second. That team beat the national record by about ten seconds. I was at another meet where a swimmer left early in a relay and the team would have broken the record by over 20 seconds. The rules do not allow for any adjustment of times. In both cases the relay teams were disqualified and the old record held. Again where do we draw a line?
While some wonder how they did against others in a given race, I once saw the fastest heat of 50 free at the Santa Clara International Meet. In the nine man final, eight hit the finish at almost the same time (one swimmer was a half a body length behind the pack). The timing system failed. The results were determined by a mixture of watch and button times as I recall. The difference between first and second 0.02 second. The difference between second and third 0.01 second. I have no idea of who hit the touch pad first. I can look up and see who won, but that could have been the result of a timer who had faster reactions. (I only point this out because, I havent told this story in a while :-) Actually it was just to illustrate that sometimes we are arbitrary in how we decide who wins a race or a gets a record.
As Bert Bergen said "The NW Zone didn't purposefully run a meet in a "short" pool; it just ended up that way." (and by extrapolation Virginia). I applaud both NW Zone and Virginia for calling a rule violation on themselves. But as you cannot unring a bell, once you note it you have to go by what the rules say.
The rules are arbitrary but fair. For me, I have drawn the line: the minimum distance for a course is 25.00 yards, 25.00 meters or 50.00 meters. Any distance less than that, the swimmer did not swim the course. (IMHO)
michael
To many the real essesnce of competitive swimming is speed over distance or time and distance. There are many things than can affect a swimmers performance:the depth of the pool, the altitude of pool, temperature, the height of the backstroke flags , what the swimmer ate or did the eat the night before - all of them will performance. But when we look at results, we are just looking at how fast the swimmer traveled over a given distance.
If a distance of 24.98 meters is allowed, isnt that the new baseline for the 25 meter distance. And if 24.98 is allowed what happens when a pool comes in at 24.97 it is just a centimeter shorter. When do we draw the line?
I have seen an instance where in a relay the second swimmer jumped early- could not have been more than a tenth or two tenths of a second. That team beat the national record by about ten seconds. I was at another meet where a swimmer left early in a relay and the team would have broken the record by over 20 seconds. The rules do not allow for any adjustment of times. In both cases the relay teams were disqualified and the old record held. Again where do we draw a line?
While some wonder how they did against others in a given race, I once saw the fastest heat of 50 free at the Santa Clara International Meet. In the nine man final, eight hit the finish at almost the same time (one swimmer was a half a body length behind the pack). The timing system failed. The results were determined by a mixture of watch and button times as I recall. The difference between first and second 0.02 second. The difference between second and third 0.01 second. I have no idea of who hit the touch pad first. I can look up and see who won, but that could have been the result of a timer who had faster reactions. (I only point this out because, I havent told this story in a while :-) Actually it was just to illustrate that sometimes we are arbitrary in how we decide who wins a race or a gets a record.
As Bert Bergen said "The NW Zone didn't purposefully run a meet in a "short" pool; it just ended up that way." (and by extrapolation Virginia). I applaud both NW Zone and Virginia for calling a rule violation on themselves. But as you cannot unring a bell, once you note it you have to go by what the rules say.
The rules are arbitrary but fair. For me, I have drawn the line: the minimum distance for a course is 25.00 yards, 25.00 meters or 50.00 meters. Any distance less than that, the swimmer did not swim the course. (IMHO)
michael
