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.
Parents
Former Member
It is clear that we have some fundamental differences in how rules should be enforced.
Michael - thank you for your corrections of my procedureal understanding. I do not think that the source of the approval to run a sanctioned meet affects my arguments, however. I was referring to 'sanctioning' in the sense that the top ten times will be culled from all sanctioned meets, not in the insurance sense. My wrong assumption was that to not count the times, the meet would have to be 'desanctioned.' I see now that the justification is in the second half - 'all rules and regulations having been followed." (It is not clear to me if that phrase refers to the procedure leading to sanctioning, which I had assumed, or something different. Perhaps it should say 'all *other* rules and regulations . . .') I argue, and continue to argue, that all rules and regulations were followed. I am glad that Pacific will improve on its procedures, at least.
Bert - do you really think .01 seconds will make a difference in who gets in the top ten? I checked the top ten for last years SCM in the 50 free for all the age groups (50 free is at the top of the page, so it is easier to look at all of them.) Only in three cases was the difference between the ninth and tenth place .01 or less seconds (.01 seconds is the appropriate time for a length discrepancy of 1/2 inch). In any of these three cases, do you think the ninth place was a NW swimmer? As I said, I remain confident that the length discrepancy will not bring a NW swimmer from eleventh to tenth place, in any event, for any agegroup.
And of course there are irrelevant time differences. That is why they don't report times with an accuracy of better than .01 seconds.
Before I made the basis of my argument legal rights and wrongs, I would have said that incredibly small chance of hurting a tenth place swimmer was well overcome by the 100% chance of hurting all of the NW swimmers that will not have their times counted at all.
Finally, I am curious as to the enforcement differences between a length discrepancy from the required length, and a discrepancy with other requirements for a competition pool, such as height of flags or the location of the lane crosses. Dan, the rest of you, and I have succeeded in demonstrating that three of the top four SCM meets west of the Mississippi were in non-regulation pools (NW zone (pool length), Pacific Championship (flag height), and SW zone (lane crosses)). (Representing well over 1/4 of all USMS membership) Why not throw all those times out?
This last question is a direct challenge to those people (Michael, Paul, etc.) that argue that that the procedure for establishing a competitive, official meet is, without question (apparently), trumped by an after-meet finding that the pool did not really meet requirements. I suppose someone will say that a length requirement is more important than the others that I have mentioned. Where in the rules does it say that?
It is clear that we have some fundamental differences in how rules should be enforced.
Michael - thank you for your corrections of my procedureal understanding. I do not think that the source of the approval to run a sanctioned meet affects my arguments, however. I was referring to 'sanctioning' in the sense that the top ten times will be culled from all sanctioned meets, not in the insurance sense. My wrong assumption was that to not count the times, the meet would have to be 'desanctioned.' I see now that the justification is in the second half - 'all rules and regulations having been followed." (It is not clear to me if that phrase refers to the procedure leading to sanctioning, which I had assumed, or something different. Perhaps it should say 'all *other* rules and regulations . . .') I argue, and continue to argue, that all rules and regulations were followed. I am glad that Pacific will improve on its procedures, at least.
Bert - do you really think .01 seconds will make a difference in who gets in the top ten? I checked the top ten for last years SCM in the 50 free for all the age groups (50 free is at the top of the page, so it is easier to look at all of them.) Only in three cases was the difference between the ninth and tenth place .01 or less seconds (.01 seconds is the appropriate time for a length discrepancy of 1/2 inch). In any of these three cases, do you think the ninth place was a NW swimmer? As I said, I remain confident that the length discrepancy will not bring a NW swimmer from eleventh to tenth place, in any event, for any agegroup.
And of course there are irrelevant time differences. That is why they don't report times with an accuracy of better than .01 seconds.
Before I made the basis of my argument legal rights and wrongs, I would have said that incredibly small chance of hurting a tenth place swimmer was well overcome by the 100% chance of hurting all of the NW swimmers that will not have their times counted at all.
Finally, I am curious as to the enforcement differences between a length discrepancy from the required length, and a discrepancy with other requirements for a competition pool, such as height of flags or the location of the lane crosses. Dan, the rest of you, and I have succeeded in demonstrating that three of the top four SCM meets west of the Mississippi were in non-regulation pools (NW zone (pool length), Pacific Championship (flag height), and SW zone (lane crosses)). (Representing well over 1/4 of all USMS membership) Why not throw all those times out?
This last question is a direct challenge to those people (Michael, Paul, etc.) that argue that that the procedure for establishing a competitive, official meet is, without question (apparently), trumped by an after-meet finding that the pool did not really meet requirements. I suppose someone will say that a length requirement is more important than the others that I have mentioned. Where in the rules does it say that?
