Although I've been swimming since just after h.s., I've never really competed on a swim team or in many organized meets. But my daughter swam in h.s. so I got in the habit of checking local meet results in the sports pages, and still do. I like to see how I would fair with my current times in the various races. Even at almost 56 years old, with a 500m free time of mid-6-minutes, I find that I'd at least be in the race occassionally against some high schoolers. The better times for the boys in this area (Rhode Island) generally tend to be in the mid-5-minute range. But today there are meet results posted in which I could have won all of the freestyle events. And possibly some of the other stroke races as well. But the thing that baffles me most about this particular meet are the winning times for all four of the 100m races. As expected, "usually" the 100 free is the fastest of the four. Followed closely by the 100 butterfly, then the 100 back, and finally the 100 ***. But in this meet the fastest 100 race was the butterfly at 1:03.66. Then, seven seconds back at 1:10.82 is the 100m backstroke. Nearly two seconds behind that at 1:11.9 was the 100m freestyle. Then eight seconds after that at 1:18.8 was the 100m breaststroke. Also odd was that the 200 IM, at 2:18.62 was faster than the 200 freestyle at 2:23.34.
I dunno...maybe all that isn't so uncommon to those of you who've swum competitively for years. I just find it odd.
Dan
In my experience this depends a lot on the strength of the teams involved. Some HS teams are sufficiently small that they can't fill all of the events.
That was my thought as well. Probably two small teams with only a couple good swimmers. This results in strange looking results because the competition is so uneven.
Although I've been swimming since just after h.s., I've never really competed on a swim team or in many organized meets. But my daughter swam in h.s. so I got in the habit of checking local meet results in the sports pages, and still do. I like to see how I would fair with my current times in the various races. Even at almost 56 years old, with a 500m free time of mid-6-minutes, I find that I'd at least be in the race occassionally against some high schoolers. The better times for the boys in this area (Rhode Island) generally tend to be in the mid-5-minute range. But today there are meet results posted in which I could have won all of the freestyle events. And possibly some of the other stroke races as well. But the thing that baffles me most about this particular meet are the winning times for all four of the 100m races. As expected, "usually" the 100 free is the fastest of the four. Followed closely by the 100 butterfly, then the 100 back, and finally the 100 ***. But in this meet the fastest 100 race was the butterfly at 1:03.66. Then, seven seconds back at 1:10.82 is the 100m backstroke. Nearly two seconds behind that at 1:11.9 was the 100m freestyle. Then eight seconds after that at 1:18.8 was the 100m breaststroke. Also odd was that the 200 IM, at 2:18.62 was faster than the 200 freestyle at 2:23.34.
I dunno...maybe all that isn't so uncommon to those of you who've swum competitively for years. I just find it odd.
Dan
The times seem very slow for high schooler's, at least compared to the ones around here. Perhaps they were swimming short course meters. I agree the time spread was odd as well. Maybe some races were focused on JV swimmers (100/200 free for example) and others varsity (200 IM). Maybe the kids were swimming their "off" events? Sometimes in early season the teams do crazy things just to keep it fresh and fun for the kids.
The specific times, and yards vs. meters wasn't really what caught my attention. But rather that the freestyle races weren't the fastest, and in the case of the 100s that the freestyle was the third fastest.
They are slow times, but I'm pretty sure they're the varsity times. JV results are usually reported in a seperate column in our local paper.
Dan
In my experience this depends a lot on the strength of the teams involved. Some HS teams are sufficiently small that they can't fill all of the events. Sometimes a relatively weak swimmer will be the fastest representative for the team in one or more events. If this happens for both teams, the event can seem anomalously slow. This happed often when I was in HS. In my own experience, I would often win an event, but when I got beaten it was quite often by a lot. I might swim in the 5:50 range for a 500 SCY free for example, and win a remarkable number of dual meets, but when we went up against a large strong team, I would be beaten by over a full minute!
I thought this was just late 1970s Illinois swimming, but my daughter has started HS swimming here in PA and I've seen the same thing happening. A few weeks ago I noted that a 2:17 WON the boys 200 SCY free for example. I thought, "good grief, I was faster than that last April at 52 years old." By contrast, it took a :49 to win the 100 free at the same dual meet.
It happened again...but among two different schools. The 100 backstroke beat the 100 free by about 4.5 seconds. But in thise case it does appear that the better freestyle swimmers were in the other freestyle events. The splits in the 500 were faster that the 100 freestyle winner, and and the 50 free swimmer's time looks like it probably would have beaten the 100 handily. The 200 IM beat the 200 freestyle by about 11 seconds.
Maybe this happens more than I previously realized. I just surprised that the backstroke and IM are beating the freestyle.
Dan
You're assuming all of the swimmers have similar backgrounds and abilities. Sounds like the coach is putting the newer swimmers in the shorter freestyle events and putting his better swimmers in the others. You can only swim two individual events at a high school meet. Maybe they only have one or two kids who swim year-round so they only show up in a couple of events and are fast.
You're assuming all of the swimmers have similar backgrounds and abilities. Sounds like the coach is putting the newer swimmers in the shorter freestyle events and putting his better swimmers in the others. You can only swim two individual events at a high school meet. Maybe they only have one or two kids who swim year-round so they only show up in a couple of events and are fast.
No, I'm just stating what I observe in the results. And this isn't just one school/meet. I've now seen it in three different meets involving six different schools. I just find it odd that some of the freestyle events have slower winning times than the winning times of some of the other strokes in the same distance (both butterfly and backstroke, and in one meet the 100 breaststroke winner would have placed in the 100 freestyle). But now what I think may be happening is that those faster swimmers are being used to stack the relays since those races are worth more points. In RI a swimmer may enter a total of four events, only two can be individual events.
Dan
