Pool Measurement - World Championships

This weekend I was at a swim meet and heard a very distrubing rumor. I heard that the DeGuerre Pool which was the pool used for the 1987 USMS Short Course Championships at Stanford and is now called the Baker Pool because of the new renovation and expansion that was done in 1999. The rumor I heard is that the pool was measured recently and found to be exactly 50 Meters with no touch pads at the time of measurement. I thought this was a joke but everyone was serious about this and wondered what would be the ramifications of this. Touch pad tolerence for Colorado timing pads is .3 inches or .76 cm. The first issue with this is that if this is true, and if we follow FINA rules, that all swims in the Baker Pool would have to be done by using manual timekeeping. That who ever is scheduled to be swimming in that pool would not have Automated Officiating Equipment and that it would be replaced by a chief timekeeper, three (3) timekeepers per lane and two (2) additional timekeepers per lane according to the FINA Rules and Regulations SW 1.2.3. With over 6300 swimmers swimming the event this greatly impacts everything that is involved in the meet. If this is true are there contingency plans in place that would change the order of the way the meet would run. For example if we swim Women in one pool and Men in the other, if the Women get down early would the Men start at the other pool. Because of time line pressures could the meet go to and odd/even heat running of events that has been used in the recent National Meets such as Coral Springs. Of course this might not be fair because some people would get the Automated Belardi Pool with touch pads, splits and scoreboard verses the Baker Pool with human timers and no splits and scoreboards. It would seen to me that the meet would get out of alignment because there would be no balancing between activities in both pools. I believe because of the manual adjustments to be made after every swimming heat that the slow down at the Baker pool would create productivity and efficiency issues with the timelines for both swimmers and officials. In closing let me say I appreciate all of the efforts of Michael Moore and the LOC. The reason I am bringing this up is because the meet starts in 20 days and I think people should be prepared for this. The FINA World meet will be a long spread over many days and I know we have been asked to give a little in our expectations in the differences between USMS meets and FINA World Championship meets. This expectation will be the greatest of all that we will have to deal with if what I am saying is true.