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.
Originally posted by Rob Copeland
This was never an issue before, because this will be the first meet that is using both 50 meter courses for competition.
Rob:
I can think of two meets where they used both 50 Meter courses. I was at the 1998 USMS LC Nationals in Fort Lauderdale and remember that meet well because I swam all my good times in the new pool and didn't swim good times in the old stadium pool. This was also a meet that you could swim both distance events at Nationals (800 - 1500 Free).
In a discussion this weekend about the short pool at Stanford, one of the swimmers swam at the 2004 World Championships in Riccione, Italy and said there was an indoor 50 meter pool and an outdoor 50 meter pool and people seem to like the indoor 50 meter pool better.
www.masters2004.it/venues.asp
I think Rob was specifically referring to using both of Stanford's 50m pools for competition.
Oh yeah, it looks like I might have the opportunity to meet Mr. Copeland. Here's an excerpt from the psych sheet for the 800 free:
91 Nelson, Kirk E 36 PNA(USA) 9:43.23
92 Copeland, Rob 50 GAJA(USA) 9:43.27
Originally posted by knelson
I'll say! I would have thought they'd just have to live with it.
Kirk:
I am going to link some threads of the past about this from two years ago and you can see how people feel about this. The thread the Losers by Frosty was the one that really kicked this thing off.
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
Originally posted by knelson
I think Rob was specifically referring to using both of Stanford's 50m pools for competition.
Oh yeah, it looks like I might have the opportunity to meet Mr. Copeland. Here's an excerpt from the psych sheet for the 800 free:
91 Nelson, Kirk E 36 PNA(USA) 9:43.23
92 Copeland, Rob 50 GAJA(USA) 9:43.27
Kirk:
At both meets they used the two 50 Meter pools for competition. At the 1998 USMS LC Nationals they had breaks after the long distance event in the morning for warm up. In fact they had the exact warm up guidelines that Coral Springs had. Two hours before the meet started and then 30 minutes after the break. For the rest of the meet you had to warm up and warm down in the diving pool.
I don't know what happen in Riccione because I was not in attendence at that meet. My teamate from Michigan Masters (Denise Brown) told me about the competitive arrangements at that meet.
That is good that you will swim against Rob. The man went 10:47 in his 1000 at Coral Springs so that looks like a reasonable time estimate for the 800 Free.
Originally posted by knelson
Oh yeah, it looks like I might have the opportunity to meet Mr. Copeland. Here's an excerpt from the psych sheet for the 800 free:
91 Nelson, Kirk E 36 PNA(USA) 9:43.23
92 Copeland, Rob 50 GAJA(USA) 9:43.27 It looks like I need to talk to the meet director and see if he can NOT shave my lane or take a little extra off yours. All I need is about 3 inches per hundred to make up that 0.04 second…
I built an indoor swimming pool years ago in Hamilton (the George Park Swimming School) one of the workers father came to watch the concrete pour and he knocked the level off and put it back in the wrong place 6 inches and 1 sixtenth inch out. The pool was poured and plastered, the health inspector came and found the pool 1 sixtenth shallower then the regulations. The deck was out by a 16th inch also. Before I was able to open it took 2 days of concrete grinding.
I believe that the "old" Stanford pool was refurbished when the new one was built, and they probably resurfaced it, making it slightly shorter.
Same thing happened here at Caltech. They built the new pool. Then they resurfaced the old pool. The old pool is now too short to be used for competition (not that we'd want to, but what if there was a problem with the new pool during a meet and they wanted to switch to the old pool? Can't).
I like to do my workouts in the OLD pool. I need every advantage I can get.
Originally posted by knelson
I think you meant "gist" rather than "jest." Although I'm not convinced the whole thing isn't a jest!
One of my swimmers did the original measurement, he's a civil engineer employed by the City of San Francisco. He told me that the second measurement was done by the folks at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, they both got the same result! Fifty Meters on the dot. There'll be some grinding going on. Hope the folks doing the grinding don't have to pay for parking ;)
See Ya
Brian
I'm having trouble understanding if there is any truth to the issue of the length of the Baker Pool at Stanford University.
I'm having a lot of fun with the jokes, but can someone tell me if there is an official answer?
After all World Records are based on absolute parameters. Pool records are POOL records...
Thanks!
Kokkole, it sounds to me like they are going to have to pool fixed and it will be the correct length. I think the jest is that they are going to shave the pool down to be correct, which personally, I think it is amazing.
