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)
Originally posted by jim clemmons
I seem to recall that "prior to the actual start of the relay, the order and names must be correct".
I know with age group meets, this is true. In the meet information it says nothing about relay name switches, except it has to be in the same age group. However, there may be other rules that govern this in the USMS rulebook. I am suppose to be working ;) so cannot poke around right now.
To explain why lane hopping can cause bad results:
A meet is seeded in the computer, and the computer and timing system are tied together. The timing system does not have names, it has distance, number of swimmers, number of heats. Times come off the pads, into the timing system, no match on names. Then the computer picks up those times from the timing system when the heat is complete and just places the times into the corresponding heat and lane. If swimmers have switched lanes, and the table does not know it, then the names do not get switched in the computer, and the times are tied to a lane. The timers also may not know about the switch, so don't change it on their sheets.
If using MM, it is somewhat easy to switch names, there is a function which allows dragging people across heats and lanes, but many times when this happens, the table and the refs may not even be aware of it, because the swimmer does not realize the importance, or may not even be aware they swam in the wrong place. Then results get printed incorrectly, especially if the swimmer jumps in a lane that was empty but was really assigned to a swimmer who simply did not show up.
The easiest catch is someone jumping into a lane that truly was empty on the seeded heat. That is when I start asking meet refs, who swam in lane such and such, I have a time, and no name!
Originally posted by jim clemmons
I seem to recall that "prior to the actual start of the relay, the order and names must be correct".
I know with age group meets, this is true. In the meet information it says nothing about relay name switches, except it has to be in the same age group. However, there may be other rules that govern this in the USMS rulebook. I am suppose to be working ;) so cannot poke around right now.
To explain why lane hopping can cause bad results:
A meet is seeded in the computer, and the computer and timing system are tied together. The timing system does not have names, it has distance, number of swimmers, number of heats. Times come off the pads, into the timing system, no match on names. Then the computer picks up those times from the timing system when the heat is complete and just places the times into the corresponding heat and lane. If swimmers have switched lanes, and the table does not know it, then the names do not get switched in the computer, and the times are tied to a lane. The timers also may not know about the switch, so don't change it on their sheets.
If using MM, it is somewhat easy to switch names, there is a function which allows dragging people across heats and lanes, but many times when this happens, the table and the refs may not even be aware of it, because the swimmer does not realize the importance, or may not even be aware they swam in the wrong place. Then results get printed incorrectly, especially if the swimmer jumps in a lane that was empty but was really assigned to a swimmer who simply did not show up.
The easiest catch is someone jumping into a lane that truly was empty on the seeded heat. That is when I start asking meet refs, who swam in lane such and such, I have a time, and no name!
