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.
So I'm just wondering...how much does a pool length need to be "off" for it to be inaccurate, and for times to be invalidated?
Today while lifeguarding at my pool I asked the pool manager if the pools had ever been certified by any governing body. The pool is only about five years old. But, she said "No, not to my knowledge." But, she was instantly very concerned and got out her steel tape measure so that she and I could check it. We measured both sides, and at first we were sure the 25 meter pool was long by abut 1.75 inches. But then we realized we mis-read the conversion of 25 meters to feet-inches. Turns out that it's 'spot on'...or at least within a quarter inch...by human-steel tape measurements. But my question is...how far off is considered "inaccurate" by USA Swimming/USMS/FINA ?
Dan
Pools do not have to be certified if competition will never be held in the pool.
I suppose the pool I'm referencing falls under this consideration since it's on a Navy base. I mean we have a USMS group that works out there (active duty, military retirees, family members, and government civilian employees), and until several years ago there was a youth club sponsored by the base that practiced there (in the old pool). But it never hosted (sanctioned) meets that I can recall. Usually the military frowns on allowing the civilian community on bases for such things, and often actually discourages it in odd ways. Not building the pool length to accommodate timing pads may be one of them. But...one never knows! I mean it seems like any company worthy of building competition pools would inform their customers of things such as extra length of a couple inches to allow for timing pads, etc. Before this current pool...which is only about five years old...the pool on this Navy base was 35 (thirty-five) yards long. And, there was not just one, but actually three pools that length on the base at one time. Evidently they were all WWII era pools. I never could ascertain how/why they arrived at the 35yd length to build. Then I was on another military base in another state. There was a 35 yard pool there. So I asked the people at that pool if they had any idea why the military built pools at 35 yards long. Their response was "They did it specifically to discourage outside swimming organizations to ask if they could use the base pool to host swim meets."
Dan
Hi Dan,
All of this is in the USMS rule book under sections 106 (Facility Standards) with some additional info under Section 105 and Appendix B.
The pool must be at least as long as the minimum required in the Rule book. There is no allowance for being shorter, so "within" a quarter inch is only acceptable if it is long.
When you measured, it was probably without pads, so there is an additional allowance that must be made for the width of the pad. If you pool is "spot on" without pads, it may be too short when a pad is put in for meets. This is why we really prefer pool measurements to be done with the pad(s) in place.
If your pool has a bulkhead on one of the turning ends, it gets even more involved because bulkheads can move which changes the course length.
Pools do not have to be certified if competition will never be held in the pool. USMS keeps a list of pools that have been measured. What is the name of your pool? If a masters meet has been held there, it has to have been measured for the times to count and the pool would be on the USMS list.
Alot of effort goes into making sure pools meet or exceed the minimum acceptable length
