I, along with 58 others, swam the Southern LCM championship on 7/29-30/2017. We did so in the University of New Orleans Pool in New Orleans, LA just as we have for years with the exception of the Hurricane Katrina year and several subsequent years.
My problem is that, when I checked my times of the USMS website, the times were in red with an explanation that they could not be used as official for records because the pool's measurement was not certified as it had a moveable bulkhead. I emailed Southern and asked why the certification had not been sent in and they replied that it had been sent but it had an error and USMS would not let it be corrected. This bummed me out as I had 4 top 10 swims and 5 Southern record swims for my age group.
This seems to be an awful price to pay for the innocent, dues and event paying participant who has no control pool certification. All we know is that the bulkhead is at the far end of the pool, 50 meters, where it always has been for LCM meets in the past. There is nothing obvious that we can detect or correct to make the pool certifiable and there is no way to make sure the form is sent in correctly.
There must be some way USMS can rectify this situation without invalidating the times of the swimmers who invested time and money in the meet.
Paul, thank you very much for your answer and explanation of the thinking that went into the decision to not certify the pool and subsequently the results of the meet. There are a bunch of questions that I have that I would like to pose:
1. Does USMS take into consideration that the race director was retiring after the meet and might not have a lot of incentive to do the right thing by the athletes in the meet?
2. The bulkhead in question is a solid bulkhead across all 8 lanes and the measurement should be skewed in more than one lane as, logically, the bulkhead would be on a bias and more than one lane would be affected?
3. Did USMS check times to see if they were affected by the alleged shortened lane? I swam in lane 1 thru lane 7 and my times are about what I would expect in all lanes. Lane 8 was used for warm up and warm down.
4. If one lane was affected, why aren't the times in the other lanes ok?
5. If USMS knows there is a problem prior to the meet, why can't they send an email blast to participant or post something on the website? There is not only the entry fees but there a large number of participants from out of town who rented hotel room and traveled decent distances to the meet. It was also one of the longest meets I have attended as there was a computer breakdown and I spent almost 8 hours at the venue on the first day.
I know this is quixotic but I just had to rant as I am frustrated and have lost my thirst for competitive swimming and USMS.
Bob Sigerson
Paul, thank you very much for your answer and explanation of the thinking that went into the decision to not certify the pool and subsequently the results of the meet. There are a bunch of questions that I have that I would like to pose:
1. Does USMS take into consideration that the race director was retiring after the meet and might not have a lot of incentive to do the right thing by the athletes in the meet?
2. The bulkhead in question is a solid bulkhead across all 8 lanes and the measurement should be skewed in more than one lane as, logically, the bulkhead would be on a bias and more than one lane would be affected?
3. Did USMS check times to see if they were affected by the alleged shortened lane? I swam in lane 1 thru lane 7 and my times are about what I would expect in all lanes. Lane 8 was used for warm up and warm down.
4. If one lane was affected, why aren't the times in the other lanes ok?
5. If USMS knows there is a problem prior to the meet, why can't they send an email blast to participant or post something on the website? There is not only the entry fees but there a large number of participants from out of town who rented hotel room and traveled decent distances to the meet. It was also one of the longest meets I have attended as there was a computer breakdown and I spent almost 8 hours at the venue on the first day.
I know this is quixotic but I just had to rant as I am frustrated and have lost my thirst for competitive swimming and USMS.
Bob Sigerson
