Call me an old fashioned cynic, but Gary Hall's oh so exclusive "Race Club" seems to generate more amusement than intimidation. To review the bidding for those with real lives, Mr. Hall announced a few months ago his intent to form his own club dedicated to elite swimming. It has a fabulous location and training facility in the Florida Keys. It will cover travel, training and living expenses. (I'm tempted to ask who is fronting the money, but I won't denigrade Mr. Hall's ability to raise funds.) If you want to join them, send in a resume; don't call us; we'll call you. Let us look over your accoplishments and decide whether you are worthy.
Hmm, great facilities, don't have to share pool time with the non-world class members (i.e. 99%) of a Swim Club, just about all expenses paid. Unless you have your own lucrative endorsement deal, what swimmer wouldn't want to join this team?
Well, the initial members of the "Swim Club" were announced last week. www.swiminfo.com/.../6097.asp Eight Olympians sounds real impressive. But then you look at the list a little more closely. Eleven swimmers, and although I have not googled everyone of them, all of the ones I have googled are in their late 20's or older. Or in other words, 3 of the 11 swimmers are chronologically at the back end of their careers, and they have not yet made their nation's Olympic Team. Closer scrutiny reveals 10 of the 11 are men. Just about all of them swim the 50 free or 50 fly, and few of them seriously compete in anything other that the 50 or 100 free or fly. In contrast to the lack of age, gender and event diversity, the team does have members of many nationalities and ethic backgrounds. However, the most telling stat of all is that roughly half of the members I checked are not currently ranked in the World Top 20 Rankings, LCM or SCM, in any event.
Overall, the "Swim Club" sort of reminds me of the kind of team a rookie fantasy league coach would assemble--there are a lot of names you would recognize, but their most productive years may be behind them. To be fair, all of these folks are amazing, world-class swimmers. Their careers to date have been awesome, and they remain extraordinary today by any standard, except arguably World Rankings. In contrast, I am an opinionated loud mouth. I would be delighted to see them find new speed and light up the scoreboards next year with medals and records, and make a complete monkey of me. As of right now, I think may the "Swim Club's" gloss may have exceeded its actual capabilities.
Matt
Former Member
Ken, there was a fellow with the Race Club that looked similiar to Gary, but was taller. He was over there a couple heats prior to the relay, so that was probably who you saw. After the relay, he along with the swimmers were reviewing their video tape.
I still do not have the answer to my question which was, why did they DQ, but maybe no one knows.
As I said, if Hall swam on the relay, and their card said Ciarla was going to swim, then that's at least one reason they got disqualified. The fact that Ciarla is listed in the results and Hall was not at least implies that they made a sub after they submitted the entry.
Not being the ref, I can't say for sure this is why.
Maybe -- I was on the opposite side of the pool. (Or maybe I should just drop by the optometrist :D)
Hall swimming the relay could have been the reason, since Ciarla was listed on the relay entry. I think a substitution can be made if the referee is told in advance -- maybe they didn't do that. The officials seemed to be very strict about things like that. (One of my club's relays was almost DQ'd because a name was misspelled.)
Then it was probably the other fellow. He looked enough like Hall that from across the pool it would have been easy to mistake him. He was also very tall, I think taller than Sabir.
Being on relay E for Illinois Masters, we did not worry too much about changes on the relay cards, but if you are about to set a record, I guess it would be grounds for DQ. Guess they will have to come back next year to set it.
Originally posted by dorothyrd
They were all huddled around the video camera afterwards watching the tape. Maybe they did jump and they were checking the tape.
It would've been interesting if they checked and then changed the decision. I know in the past some officials at nationals have flat out refused to even review tape. I'm pretty sure there is not instant replay in masters swimming. Anyone know if the decision could have been changed?
The reason I originally thought they only had three people on the relay was the fact that only two women were on the roster and only one swam an individual event. I would think it highly unlikely an Australian Olympic team member would travel to Indy just to swim one relay. And then there is the fact that only three swimmers are listed on the results. Maybe the fourth wasn't registered but if that were the case I'm not sure they would've let them swim in the first place.
Maybe someone should ask the question on their website.
I guess I did not make myself very clear. The officials were not looking at the tape. Just the swimmers, the tall guy we have been talking about and the woman who did the taping. I left the deck immediately after they swam to get my dry clothes to change. When I came back down, that is when they(Race Club, not officials) were watching their tape.
I also did not know they were DQ'd until I got home last night and looked at the results. Of course I was not watching the officials for any hand going up, I was watching the action in the pool. It was quite a race and some amazing swims.
As I was looking at relay results this morning, I saw another relay listed with only 3 swimmers' names.
I do know that at another LC Nat'ls, the people in charge cross-checked relay cards and if swimmer's names were missing or ages/age groups written down were wrong, the relay got deequed.
