Question to throw to the group out of curiosity -- What do people think about reasonable seed times for swim meets? Now, I know that people almost always enter masters meets with times that are best guesses, but what about entry times that are definitely not best guesses?
Hypothetical scenario: 400 IM and 50 free are back-to-back events at an end-of-season championship meet. Swimmer enters both events, with a time of 15:00.00 for the 400 IM, and 23.50 for the 50 free. For other events in the meet, the same swimmer is entered at 2:06 for the 200 IM, 2:10 for the 200 fly, etc. So _clearly_ this person is faster than 15:00 in the 400 IM. When asked, the swimmer says, honestly, that the seed time is bogus so that he has a longer rest before swimming the 50 free right afterwards. (The meet info for this hypothetical situation does _not_ allow for 'NT' entries.)
What do people think about this? I can't find any USMS rule that prohibits this, but it feels rather unfair to the other people in Heat 1 who actually do belong in Heat 1, and will have some fast person in an outside lane lap them a couple times. My personal feeling is that if the order of events doesn't work for you, then don't swim one of the events.
Thoughts?
-Rick
Parents
Former Member
We Masters swimmers pride ourselves in being inclusive. Why not allow the swimmer to do this? Does it really harm the other swimmers, I doubt it. Many times that first heat of the 400 IM will have one, maybe two swimmers who take ten to twelve minutes to complete their 400 swim.
You must remember many LMScs do not have a lot of swim meets, the swimmer may not get another chance to swim the 400 IM. We are not here to satisfy a meet host, we provide the meets for the swimmers. So let them swim. It is the same with people entering a slower time at Nationals, it is up to the swimmer, we are not police. This is adult swimming, if an age group swimmer doen't submit proof of a time, they don't get to swim. We are not that way, and that is a good thing.
I know that at many meets, there is no 200 breaststroke, so we swim our 200 *** during the 200 freestyle event. Is that harmfull, NO. But to do a good 200 *** or 200 fly at nationals you must swim three or more 200 races before Nationals. The only way to do that is during the free events.
Bottom line that is why we do not have a rule against this.
Wayne McCauley
We Masters swimmers pride ourselves in being inclusive. Why not allow the swimmer to do this? Does it really harm the other swimmers, I doubt it. Many times that first heat of the 400 IM will have one, maybe two swimmers who take ten to twelve minutes to complete their 400 swim.
You must remember many LMScs do not have a lot of swim meets, the swimmer may not get another chance to swim the 400 IM. We are not here to satisfy a meet host, we provide the meets for the swimmers. So let them swim. It is the same with people entering a slower time at Nationals, it is up to the swimmer, we are not police. This is adult swimming, if an age group swimmer doen't submit proof of a time, they don't get to swim. We are not that way, and that is a good thing.
I know that at many meets, there is no 200 breaststroke, so we swim our 200 *** during the 200 freestyle event. Is that harmfull, NO. But to do a good 200 *** or 200 fly at nationals you must swim three or more 200 races before Nationals. The only way to do that is during the free events.
Bottom line that is why we do not have a rule against this.
Wayne McCauley
