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.
If this pool has been certified in the past, why would that certification suddenly change? Yes, they have to measure, but honestly this rationale should apply moreso for the short course placement
Clearly it (the pool) has a history and a precedent set. One could reason that the bulkhead was locked into the fifty meter spot as it always had been in the past.
Seems very unfair. The meet director evidently did you all a disservice, and should be the one trying to correct the wrong. Good luck wth that.
I was thinking the same thing. Is it possible for a pool's measurement to ever change? But then I thought about the moveable bulkhead. And I suppose that IF a new bulkhead were obtained, and the original certified one had been replaced...although the new one gets moored to the same fixtures...the new one might actually have a different measurement. But...in a pool with no moveable bulkhead...seems to me that once it's certified that it's certified for life.
In cases such as what happened with the OP's results...if the pool was advertised as certified by the meet management...and then it wasn't...they should at least be required to refund registration fees.
Dan
If this pool has been certified in the past, why would that certification suddenly change? Yes, they have to measure, but honestly this rationale should apply moreso for the short course placement
Clearly it (the pool) has a history and a precedent set. One could reason that the bulkhead was locked into the fifty meter spot as it always had been in the past.
Seems very unfair. The meet director evidently did you all a disservice, and should be the one trying to correct the wrong. Good luck wth that.
I was thinking the same thing. Is it possible for a pool's measurement to ever change? But then I thought about the moveable bulkhead. And I suppose that IF a new bulkhead were obtained, and the original certified one had been replaced...although the new one gets moored to the same fixtures...the new one might actually have a different measurement. But...in a pool with no moveable bulkhead...seems to me that once it's certified that it's certified for life.
In cases such as what happened with the OP's results...if the pool was advertised as certified by the meet management...and then it wasn't...they should at least be required to refund registration fees.
Dan
