I propose a rule change for the championship committee. If someone misses their heat at USMS Nationals due to general stupidity and day dreaming, they should be allowed to swim in an open lane in that same event.
John Smith
(2006 psuedo champion, 50yd back)
Parents
Former Member
Speaking up for the meet volunteers -- there is a lot of pressure on the meet folks to get results posted very quickly. When there are adjustments of this sort then it slows down getting the results for everyone. And it IS a source of a lot of errors. Not just in the official times, but also in the scoring and awards. Once a medal has been handed out it's difficult to recover it and award it to the correct person, etc.
If there is a separate admin referee (typical for this caliber of meet) it does help cut down on the errors but still slows down results when they catch them and have them fixed.
Speaking from the other point of view, I am still trying to get official results corrected for a meet that took place almost a month ago where a swimmer had to be reassigned because another swimmer erroneously swam in our kid's seeded heat/lane (got up on the blocks first). The coach addressed it at the meet twice, we have contacted both the meet referee and host team meet director and LSC times people. These things are very difficult to correct once the meet is over, the supporting paperwork boxed up and put into storage, and people are back at day jobs and on travel. At this point, the results have already been published, loaded into team, LSC, state, and national databases and used for records updates and recognition. Most of these will never get synched back up even if we get the meet host to fix the results and resubmit.
I cannot imagine how a championships meet with a thousand swimmers would function if there was no compelling reason for them to keep up on their lane assignments.
Speaking up for the meet volunteers -- there is a lot of pressure on the meet folks to get results posted very quickly. When there are adjustments of this sort then it slows down getting the results for everyone. And it IS a source of a lot of errors. Not just in the official times, but also in the scoring and awards. Once a medal has been handed out it's difficult to recover it and award it to the correct person, etc.
If there is a separate admin referee (typical for this caliber of meet) it does help cut down on the errors but still slows down results when they catch them and have them fixed.
Speaking from the other point of view, I am still trying to get official results corrected for a meet that took place almost a month ago where a swimmer had to be reassigned because another swimmer erroneously swam in our kid's seeded heat/lane (got up on the blocks first). The coach addressed it at the meet twice, we have contacted both the meet referee and host team meet director and LSC times people. These things are very difficult to correct once the meet is over, the supporting paperwork boxed up and put into storage, and people are back at day jobs and on travel. At this point, the results have already been published, loaded into team, LSC, state, and national databases and used for records updates and recognition. Most of these will never get synched back up even if we get the meet host to fix the results and resubmit.
I cannot imagine how a championships meet with a thousand swimmers would function if there was no compelling reason for them to keep up on their lane assignments.
