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
Michael Moore has provided a good summary of the reasons why many of us want people to provide resonable seed times. In fact, the vast majority (more than 95%) of people do their very best in putting in seed times. Nevertheless, as Michael points out, that very small minority can have an impact on the 95% in terms of a timeline (just think about the impact of having an extra heat of the 1650 on the day's timeline when some fast swimmers but in bogus seed time and force a 25 minute 1650 into the second heat).
Since our pre-meet literature did not clearly state guidelines or rules regarding seed times we have decided that we cannot change seed times or DQ people for unsportsmanlike conduct for bogus seed times. NEXT YEAR, however, we will change this. We believe that a meet director should be able to change an unreasonable seed time (think of the hypothetical but not so rare 1650 example above) to keep the meet competitive and to enhance the meet experience for all (think earlier finishes).
Michael Moore has provided a good summary of the reasons why many of us want people to provide resonable seed times. In fact, the vast majority (more than 95%) of people do their very best in putting in seed times. Nevertheless, as Michael points out, that very small minority can have an impact on the 95% in terms of a timeline (just think about the impact of having an extra heat of the 1650 on the day's timeline when some fast swimmers but in bogus seed time and force a 25 minute 1650 into the second heat).
Since our pre-meet literature did not clearly state guidelines or rules regarding seed times we have decided that we cannot change seed times or DQ people for unsportsmanlike conduct for bogus seed times. NEXT YEAR, however, we will change this. We believe that a meet director should be able to change an unreasonable seed time (think of the hypothetical but not so rare 1650 example above) to keep the meet competitive and to enhance the meet experience for all (think earlier finishes).
