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.
The bulkhead at my home pool has exactly this sort of pin, and four corresponding holes on either side of the deck at 25y and 50m. Plus the bulkhead itself must weigh half a ton at least, so it is virtually impossible for the distance to be off. Nevertheless, as Top Ten recorder for my LMSC, I dutifully measure the pool several times a year. My shaky laser measurements are more likely to produce a bad result than the bulkhead itself. There must be lots of pools like this, or with other means of assuring the correct placement. I respectfully suggest--and Paul, please pass this on to Mary Beth and the appropriate authorities--that each LMSC be allowed to identify pools/bulkheads that are similarly foolproof, and that times swum in these pools be automatically included in Top Ten without bulkhead measurement. Only in the case of a national or world record should a measurement be required.
In particular, this would alleviate the uncomfortable situation where a Masters swimmer has to request that the Meet Director measure a pool in a USA Swimming meet, where the measurement requirements are not as stringent as Masters.
Very interesting Doug - the pins seem to be precisely the kind of thing which should avoid constant checking and rechecking when it comes to certifying a pool with a moveable bulkhead.
This post from the older thread goes to show that the askew placement can prove to be a very common problem...
For reasons that should be obvious, I need to not comment about most of what goes on here because one never know when one would be asked to intervene or interpret but I felt a story here was useful.
For a number of years now, I have been officiating at the USA-S Sectional meet that one and now both of my daughters have been competing. A couple of years ago, I was pulling duty as the turn judge at the turn end during the 1000 Free on the first night of the meet. The meet was being conducted in a 50 meter pool with two bulkheads set at 25 yards. I sat down on the corner of the pool and looked down to watch the turns and quickly noticed that the bulkhead was far from being straight. In fact the bow in the center of the pool was on the order of 4-5 inches! (In the 1000 that amounts to over 13 feet difference.) At the time I was not one of the assigned crew, so I got the attention of one of them and explained what I saw. Now at least half of the event had already been contested. No one did anything and I didn't push it that night.
The next morning, I went up to the Meet Referee and simply said "You have a problem". After he said "I do?", I brought him over and showed him the bulkhead. We then scrambled to do what we could. The first thing that happened was the double lane lines were reduced to single lane line that were only as tight as they needed to be. That took care of about half of the buldge. Prelims were run in that configuration. Between prelims and finals, the maintenance crew came in with two come-alongs, broke open the back of the bulkhead and pulled the two bulkheads together in order to straighten the competitive one. The meet then proceeded with what was close to a regulation course. Things like this happen and to this day, I wonder how many NCAA cuts were made in the center lanes of that pool.
The bulkhead at my home pool has exactly this sort of pin, and four corresponding holes on either side of the deck at 25y and 50m. Plus the bulkhead itself must weigh half a ton at least, so it is virtually impossible for the distance to be off. Nevertheless, as Top Ten recorder for my LMSC, I dutifully measure the pool several times a year. My shaky laser measurements are more likely to produce a bad result than the bulkhead itself. There must be lots of pools like this, or with other means of assuring the correct placement. I respectfully suggest--and Paul, please pass this on to Mary Beth and the appropriate authorities--that each LMSC be allowed to identify pools/bulkheads that are similarly foolproof, and that times swum in these pools be automatically included in Top Ten without bulkhead measurement. Only in the case of a national or world record should a measurement be required.
In particular, this would alleviate the uncomfortable situation where a Masters swimmer has to request that the Meet Director measure a pool in a USA Swimming meet, where the measurement requirements are not as stringent as Masters.
Very interesting Doug - the pins seem to be precisely the kind of thing which should avoid constant checking and rechecking when it comes to certifying a pool with a moveable bulkhead.
This post from the older thread goes to show that the askew placement can prove to be a very common problem...
For reasons that should be obvious, I need to not comment about most of what goes on here because one never know when one would be asked to intervene or interpret but I felt a story here was useful.
For a number of years now, I have been officiating at the USA-S Sectional meet that one and now both of my daughters have been competing. A couple of years ago, I was pulling duty as the turn judge at the turn end during the 1000 Free on the first night of the meet. The meet was being conducted in a 50 meter pool with two bulkheads set at 25 yards. I sat down on the corner of the pool and looked down to watch the turns and quickly noticed that the bulkhead was far from being straight. In fact the bow in the center of the pool was on the order of 4-5 inches! (In the 1000 that amounts to over 13 feet difference.) At the time I was not one of the assigned crew, so I got the attention of one of them and explained what I saw. Now at least half of the event had already been contested. No one did anything and I didn't push it that night.
The next morning, I went up to the Meet Referee and simply said "You have a problem". After he said "I do?", I brought him over and showed him the bulkhead. We then scrambled to do what we could. The first thing that happened was the double lane lines were reduced to single lane line that were only as tight as they needed to be. That took care of about half of the buldge. Prelims were run in that configuration. Between prelims and finals, the maintenance crew came in with two come-alongs, broke open the back of the bulkhead and pulled the two bulkheads together in order to straighten the competitive one. The meet then proceeded with what was close to a regulation course. Things like this happen and to this day, I wonder how many NCAA cuts were made in the center lanes of that pool.
