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.
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Former Member
Hi Michael Heather,
Like Wayne, I would be very interested in the measurement procedure, as I politely asked for in another thread. What is the proper tensioner, and how do you know the stretch is compensated by the sag? Why did you let the relatively ignorant conversation of people who need information go on so long without your insight and experience? A lot of people will be measuring pools and they will need good guidance - evidently you can give it. I tried to start a new thread to discuss this topic of how to measure a pool, but that thread did not go anywhere. Someone with your expertise and strong opinions could certainly have contributed.
I've asked similar questions before with no answer, but do you have any evidence, including anecdotal, that FINA knows about, cares about, or has acted on length discrepancies of 4 mm? I stand by my understanding of how to specify dimensions - I do it professionally. If I were your engineer I would listen to you, and write the length as you want it (ignoring pad thickness, for now) as 25.0000000000 (-0.0000000001 +0.15) meters, Then tell the contractor something different, perhaps 25.010 (+/-.005) and you would be little wiser. That would be the average length. I would need to give another specification for the differences from lane to lane.
Actually, I do have a FINA story. Way back when, a swimmer lost an olympic race by a couple of thousandths of seconds. After that, it was decided to record only hundreths of seconds, and allow ties if the times were the same. Why? Because the "dimensional tolerances" could not be maintained from lane to lane! These are the differences in length that we are now talking about.
Meanwhile, could you explain your first sentence? Who is a liberal (or was that a gratuitous and irrelevant insult at people who, as far as I know, have not contributed to this discussion)? What are liberals (or engineers) trying to give away? Trying to clarify the meaning of a measurement definition is giving something away? Asking for advice is giving something away? Or were you bringing up the dead horse of the NW zone meet (but still, what would be given away?).
Wayne, I assume your comment about enough rules was addressed to my suggestion about the timing pads. I am only trying to make everything consistent and avoid loopholes. If we really care about 1mm (or one angstom) than we should certainly be concerned about the width of pads, and whether they are used or not. I imagine many pools would be OK with watches, but not OK with pads, so I see my suggestion as a way to make more pools available for meets.
Incidently, I am surprised a market for timing pads ever developed. Before pads, I assume pools were designed for the nominal length (25 y, 25 m, 50 m). But to add a pad would make the pool too short, so there could be no 'legacy' market, and they could only be put in pools that were designed for them. But there were no suppliers of pads . . .
Hi Michael Heather,
Like Wayne, I would be very interested in the measurement procedure, as I politely asked for in another thread. What is the proper tensioner, and how do you know the stretch is compensated by the sag? Why did you let the relatively ignorant conversation of people who need information go on so long without your insight and experience? A lot of people will be measuring pools and they will need good guidance - evidently you can give it. I tried to start a new thread to discuss this topic of how to measure a pool, but that thread did not go anywhere. Someone with your expertise and strong opinions could certainly have contributed.
I've asked similar questions before with no answer, but do you have any evidence, including anecdotal, that FINA knows about, cares about, or has acted on length discrepancies of 4 mm? I stand by my understanding of how to specify dimensions - I do it professionally. If I were your engineer I would listen to you, and write the length as you want it (ignoring pad thickness, for now) as 25.0000000000 (-0.0000000001 +0.15) meters, Then tell the contractor something different, perhaps 25.010 (+/-.005) and you would be little wiser. That would be the average length. I would need to give another specification for the differences from lane to lane.
Actually, I do have a FINA story. Way back when, a swimmer lost an olympic race by a couple of thousandths of seconds. After that, it was decided to record only hundreths of seconds, and allow ties if the times were the same. Why? Because the "dimensional tolerances" could not be maintained from lane to lane! These are the differences in length that we are now talking about.
Meanwhile, could you explain your first sentence? Who is a liberal (or was that a gratuitous and irrelevant insult at people who, as far as I know, have not contributed to this discussion)? What are liberals (or engineers) trying to give away? Trying to clarify the meaning of a measurement definition is giving something away? Asking for advice is giving something away? Or were you bringing up the dead horse of the NW zone meet (but still, what would be given away?).
Wayne, I assume your comment about enough rules was addressed to my suggestion about the timing pads. I am only trying to make everything consistent and avoid loopholes. If we really care about 1mm (or one angstom) than we should certainly be concerned about the width of pads, and whether they are used or not. I imagine many pools would be OK with watches, but not OK with pads, so I see my suggestion as a way to make more pools available for meets.
Incidently, I am surprised a market for timing pads ever developed. Before pads, I assume pools were designed for the nominal length (25 y, 25 m, 50 m). But to add a pad would make the pool too short, so there could be no 'legacy' market, and they could only be put in pools that were designed for them. But there were no suppliers of pads . . .
