I am wondering if anyone out there has a handicap sheet for competitions when all age groups compete against each other. I've seen them used at college alumni meets to give a handicap to the older alumni swimmers. The older you are the greater the handicap (time deducted). If you know of anyone that has put something like this together and is willing to share, I would love to get in touch with them.
Former Member
hey Dennis, a few years back Dave Tanner (world champion 50+ 200 butterfly) chaired several special meets in Bloomington that had the format of one winner per event regardless of age. Each swimmer's score for an event was attained by:
1. dividing the world record for the age group by the swimmers time (converted to seconds only).
2. take the result to the 3rd power
3. multiply by 1000
4. thus, the record equals 1000 and the other score is yours (?)
If the record is broken the score will exceed 1000.
Be sure to work out a few examples to be sure you get the hang of it. e.g, Ray Taft's records for 80+ men's 50 and 100 Backstroke were broken by Paul Hutinger last (already) summer. Ray's scores were both 1000, and the process of finding Pauls scores is as follows:
1. Ray's times were 42.96 & 1:33.59, Paul's, 42.16 & 1:33.27.
2. convert Ray's to 42.96 & 93.59 and Paul's to 42.16 & 93.27
3. doing the division gives 1.0189+ and1.0024
4. to the 3rd power we have then 1.058+ and 1.010+
5. multiplying by 1000 gives Paul's score of 1058 for the 50 M and 1010 for the 100 M Backstrokes.
That's what happens to swimmers who break records. But, more realistically for the rest of us we get scores like 680 for the 1500, 587 for the 800, 557 for the 400, 575 for the 200 Freestyles, & 400 for the 200 IM, 366 for the 400 IM, and 220 for the 200 fly!
To use such a system for my Savannah 200 fly (without legs) last month wudda been 108.
Oh yeah, David brought back this system from a summer coach in Spain in 1970. It was known there as the German Computation or something like that.
I did a google search. Here is a link to the results from Princeton's alumni swim meet from 2001: campuscgi.princeton.edu/.../alumnimeetresults01.html
It look like a range of .1 to .35 seconds given to swimmers for each year out of school, increasing with age. Men and women differ.
I have not participated in the alumni meet at my alma mater (Oxy), but I think that they simply give a tenth of a second for each year out for each 50. (So if I've been out 30 years and race in the 100 ***, I get a six second credit . . . my 1:15 will become a 1:09 when calculating the overall finish, beating a student that swims a 1:10.
I've seen other formulas. I'd suggest going to college websites and seeing if they have posts about their alumni meets.
As a participant in a few of the aforementioned Princeton alumni meets, I'd have to say that the system used is not the best one available. I would recommend going with the 1000 point basis discused above if this is for a masters competition.
Try Peter Daland at (805) 495-5210. He has been attempting to get a dual meet league running for several years and has developed a handicap system. While not perfect we have been using it since 1994.
