There's a trend in this state (Rhode Island) that disappoints me. From time to time, in certain meets, they will do away with the 500 freestyle. And (when my daughter was on the HS team) I personally witnessed that it's sometimes because the coaches can't entice anyone to swim it. Lame! Sometimes it's because the team is so small that they don't have enough swimmers. OK...maybe! First, if I were the coach, and I have plenty of swimmers on my team, I pick a kid and tell him/her to get up on the blocks and swim the race!!! But...if the rules are going to be bent by not conducting an event...when a team is truly shorthanded...why not bend the rules differently? Instead of scratching an event, let certain swimmers compete in an extra event so that ALL the scheduled events can be competed?
Dan
Dan, Yeah i've never had anything like that happen when I've been on the deck. I can not think of a situation where i'm not putting a kid in the 500. Like I said, the only thing we have ever done in a duel meet is combine boys and girls into one heat. That happens against one team every year that is very short on swimmers. They enter one girl in the 500, we put in our three girls and two of our boys all into one heat. Scored separately, but everyone swims at the same time. I can't really imagine a coach coming up to me and saying that they wanted to scratch the 500 from the meet. I'd be pretty offended as you should be.
Dan, Yeah i've never had anything like that happen when I've been on the deck. I can not think of a situation where i'm not putting a kid in the 500. Like I said, the only thing we have ever done in a duel meet is combine boys and girls into one heat. That happens against one team every year that is very short on swimmers. They enter one girl in the 500, we put in our three girls and two of our boys all into one heat. Scored separately, but everyone swims at the same time. I can't really imagine a coach coming up to me and saying that they wanted to scratch the 500 from the meet. I'd be pretty offended as you should be.
