Can someone please tell me what sandbagging is? I heard some people discussing it at my last meet, but didn't know exactly what they were talking about. It didn't sound very flattering though by the tone of their voices. Thanks in advance. :banana:
I beg to disagree. Sandbagging, as in meaning you seed yourself slower than your real time, then swimming the heat really fast, does not make the heat or the meet longer. Every heat will take as long as its slowest swimmer. Therefore whether swimmer A swims in heat 1 (slowest to fastest) and finishes in half his posted time or seeds him(or her)self properly and swims in heat 3 and -maybe- finishes second, each heat will still take as long as its slowest participant.
But you displace another slow swimmer who should be in heat 1, but has to swim in heat 2, which slows down heat 2.
Take an extreme example to illustrate...
6 lane pool. 1000 freestyle. 12 swimmers entered. The seed times, in order, are:
1. 10:01
2. 10:02
3. 10:03
4. 10:04
5. 10:05
6. 12:01
7. 13:01
8. 13:02
9. 13:03
10. 13:04
11. 13:05
12. 13:06
So when you seed this, you get the bottom 6 (13:01 through 13:06) in heat 1. The top 6 (10;01 through 12:01) in heat 2.
Now, as it turns out, the 7th seeded person (13:01) actually sandbagged the entry time. He actually swims 10:06 for his race. Everyone else had perfect seed times, and swims their exact seed time.
The way the event is seeded:
Heat 1 takes 13:06 (slowest time)
Heat 2 takes 12:01 (slowest time)
Total time: 25:07 (assuming zero break between heats)
Now, if the sandbagger had seeded himself correctly, he would have seeded at 10:06. This would have put him in heat 2, and bumped the 6th place person back into heat 1. If it had been seeded that way:
Heat 1 takes 13:06 (still slowest time)
Heat 2 takes 10:06 (would-be-sandbagger, bumped up)
Total time: 23:12 (saves almost 2 minutes)
So as you can see, the sandbagger didn't make heat 1 and slower. But it pushed a slower person up into heat 2, which slowed heat 2 way down.
This is an obviously extreme example to illustrate the effect. If you have a meet with, say, 200 heats in a day... for every 5 seconds you lose per heat, you add almost 17 minutes to the length of the session.
-Rick
I beg to disagree. Sandbagging, as in meaning you seed yourself slower than your real time, then swimming the heat really fast, does not make the heat or the meet longer. Every heat will take as long as its slowest swimmer. Therefore whether swimmer A swims in heat 1 (slowest to fastest) and finishes in half his posted time or seeds him(or her)self properly and swims in heat 3 and -maybe- finishes second, each heat will still take as long as its slowest participant.
But you displace another slow swimmer who should be in heat 1, but has to swim in heat 2, which slows down heat 2.
Take an extreme example to illustrate...
6 lane pool. 1000 freestyle. 12 swimmers entered. The seed times, in order, are:
1. 10:01
2. 10:02
3. 10:03
4. 10:04
5. 10:05
6. 12:01
7. 13:01
8. 13:02
9. 13:03
10. 13:04
11. 13:05
12. 13:06
So when you seed this, you get the bottom 6 (13:01 through 13:06) in heat 1. The top 6 (10;01 through 12:01) in heat 2.
Now, as it turns out, the 7th seeded person (13:01) actually sandbagged the entry time. He actually swims 10:06 for his race. Everyone else had perfect seed times, and swims their exact seed time.
The way the event is seeded:
Heat 1 takes 13:06 (slowest time)
Heat 2 takes 12:01 (slowest time)
Total time: 25:07 (assuming zero break between heats)
Now, if the sandbagger had seeded himself correctly, he would have seeded at 10:06. This would have put him in heat 2, and bumped the 6th place person back into heat 1. If it had been seeded that way:
Heat 1 takes 13:06 (still slowest time)
Heat 2 takes 10:06 (would-be-sandbagger, bumped up)
Total time: 23:12 (saves almost 2 minutes)
So as you can see, the sandbagger didn't make heat 1 and slower. But it pushed a slower person up into heat 2, which slowed heat 2 way down.
This is an obviously extreme example to illustrate the effect. If you have a meet with, say, 200 heats in a day... for every 5 seconds you lose per heat, you add almost 17 minutes to the length of the session.
-Rick
