The Losers

Thank you all for your comments. If you're wondering "where will it all end", I hope it ends right here. Philip mentioned a meet he attended with the backstroke flags too low. I'm thinking that I attended that meet as well and Michael Moore officiated there. Do we throw away that meet because the flags were less than 1.8m from the water's surface? (See rule 107.13) Michael already pointed out that there's a difference between a pool that's too short and a pool with flags that stand too short. I'm sure that the Rules committee would interpret 107.13 to say that even though the flags weren't at the proper height, it's still a "legal" meet. But now that (after the fact) Michael, Philip and I know that the pool for that meet isn't to specifications, are we being less than honest in not reporting it to USMS? Do I have a duty to do so? (Personally, I'd like to set that thing aside and move onward.) (Really, bad things don't happen at EVERY meet I go to. Honest!) (Once the official EC ruling comes out, we can THEN move on to fix the rule book for the future.)

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

Despite your strong assertions, Paul, your first paragraph contains three misleading or wrong statements: 1) The pool *was* found short, but outside of the regular enforcement procedures, as established at the time 2) The results under the current rules are in no way invalidated, in fact they are supported, and 3) only if the results are invalidated will any rules be changed. I'm glad for you if you are comfortable moving on, the discussion can continue without you, though not as well. It is certainly continuing with the people that need to make the final decision. You are also not the only person that has made up his/her mind on the issue (how about a poll? (smiley here for 'evil grin')) but I hope the decision makers are still open to other viewpoints. I also hope that they get advice on how regulations are enforced from someone with a legal bent. If this were a real serious issue (for example, qualifyers for olympic time trials) the swimmers in Washington would have a slam-dunk case.

I was also at another SCM championship (Paul was there) where the crosses at the bottom of the pool drifted all over the place. Not only was the pool non-regulation, but each lane was different!

There is NO SUCH THING as "insignificant time differences" in our sport when races, titles, and championships are decided by 100ths of a second. There WOULD undoubtedly be top ten standings affected (ie., 10th place 23.00 at NW pool; 11th place 23.01 at 25m pool) if we considered their times with all others. NW Zone brought the attention to the situation themselves; therefore the dangerous precedent we speak of was not such! They were mindful of a mistake and brought attention (too much on these forums, perhaps) to the situation. We can (and likely will) debate this forever. Next...

Phil There are a couple of statements I wish to comment on: "The NW zone and meet organizers followed all of the rules and regulations in getting sanctioned. The national organization agreed with that and sanctioned the meet. "The USMS national body does not sanction meets. All the meets are sanctioned by the the Local Masters Swim Committee. The NW Zone meet would have been sanctioned by Oregon Masters. The 2001 USMS Short Course Nationals at Santa Clara was sanctioned by the Pacific Masters Swimming Committee. To be sanctioned by Pacific Masters and I would guess by many of the other LMSC's, the meet director has to fill out sanctioning meet request forms. One of the forms asks for the length of the course. As the Oregon/Virginia short pool problem has brought out holes in how we look at pool length, Pacific Masters at the last monthly meeting voted to measure all the competition pools. "The NW zone and meet organizers followed all of the rules and regulations in getting sanctioned. The national organization agreed with that and sanctioned the meet. " There is no ex post facto rule here, the pool length is specific proscribed in the rules. When the pools were measured, the pools were found short. "the removal of sanction after the meet is completed is a very dangerous precedent. " I have not read where the sanction is being pulled, the pools were measured and found short. There still was a meet and the meet was still covered by USMS insurance. If what Dan said is true, then it appears that the times will not be recognized for records and top ten. michael

I weigh in with Paul and Bert on this issue. Yes, it is unfortunate the pool was short. It’s unfortunate that hard working Masters swimmers are going to be denied the recognition their hard work provided….but…. the pool was short. Bad deal? Yes, for all involved…

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?

I might as well throw my two cents in, everone else has. As to enforcement of backstroke flag height and lane crosses, no change in those will make a time faster, only slower. I don't think this discussion would be taking place if the pool was 25 yards + 1/2 inch. I'd have to argue that 1/2 inch does matter. At some point between 25 yards and 24 yards all would agree that times should not count. But at what 1/2 inch increment? Seems to me that has already been decided - at the 1/2 increment that makes a pool less than 25 yards.

Golly, this is a horse beaten thoroughly and often from every angle, but apparently has no inclination to die. If the pool is too short, then the times don't count. The national EC does not really have anything to do but affirm that point. The results of the meet(s) in question should be pitched into the trash with no further hand wringing, which only serves to deepen the sense of irony and loss to many of the swimmers affected. Any ill feelings (should anyone admit to having them) are to be directed at the meet host and/or the facility manager for not knowing and certifying the pool length at some time before the beginning of the meet. USMS simply acts to accept or reject any appropriate information submitted, based upon our rules and codes. I have been in USMS since only 1977, so am a newcomer, and have been successful to greater and lesser degrees over the years, but would never think to apply to the governing body to accept times swum in a short pool. Maby the dignity of expecting a "level playing field" is an anachronism, but I would rather lose in a fair competition than expect a break just because I think I gave a great effort in a short pool. I yam what I yam.