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
Gail, I am not being a wise guy here. I always thought that freestyle was just that...free to swim whatever stroke you chose to swim. My limited understanding of the rules (please correct me if I am wrong) say that a swimmer may swim any stroke they chose to swim in a freestyle event. BUT, once that swimmer begins the race using a specific stroke, they must continue with that stroke and cannot change to any other stroke.
Gail, I am not being a wise guy here. I always thought that freestyle was just that...free to swim whatever stroke you chose to swim. My limited understanding of the rules (please correct me if I am wrong) say that a swimmer may swim any stroke they chose to swim in a freestyle event. BUT, once that swimmer begins the race using a specific stroke, they must continue with that stroke and cannot change to any other stroke.
