Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:37:33 GMT

There are other sports where sandbagging actually does affect results. That's what I was thinking about when I decried wrongful sandbagging accusations. I used to play in the American Pool Association's billiard league which is handicapped. There is undoubtedly some sandbagging that goes on there, and it can clearly affect match results. But the amount of sandbagging accusations also undoubtedly exceed the actual amount--and there's few things more unsportsmanlike or sour grapes than condemning someone who happened to do particularly well at some given event. Sounds like these swim heat times are not that big a deal.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:50:21 GMT

I was just looking at his year's Ottawa Winterlude one LCM event and came across this Heat Sheet: Event #10 : Men 100 LCM Meter Freestyle (Since we don't have tabs in this editor, I'll use .... for spaces) Lane........Name.........Age........Time 1.............J ..............30..........1:03.69 2.............A..............29...........1:00.00 3.............M..............50...........0:59.99 4.............B...............58...........0:01.35 5.............S...............36...........0:58.00 6.............M...............44...........0:59.56 7.............M...............26...........1:02.00 In the original sheet there were no zero paddings, but the times were right-justified (lane 4 was shown as 1.35 ) Registration was done on-line and the program did accept an entry of 1.35 (instead of 1:35.00 obviously). I don't know if B did swim that heat (the fastest and last heat in a timed-final) or if he or someone else caught the error before the race and had the heats re-arranged.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:58:20 GMT

Do people actually do this? I've never seen it happen. It's a bit sick for an actual adult. I know someone who does it at every meet, and she's a USMS record holder, All-American and All-Star. Recently, this swimmer seeded herself 34 seconds slower than her current USMS record time in one event, and swam 22 seconds faster than her seed time... :notworking: I also know that it's hard to pick seed times. It is. I just entered a SCM meet, which will be, I think, my first competition in about 4 years. It took me about 20 minutes to decide on what my seed times should be. Was I inclined to pad it a bit? Absolutely! I haven't raced in a meet in 4 years! So yes, I understand this concern. I'm so relieved! I was worried that Rick may have thought I was sandbagging at the 2003 NEM SCY Championships - but I wasn't - I was merely padding.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

osterber — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:58:21 GMT

Sounds like these swim heat times are not that big a deal. Well, up to you. To me, it's the difference between getting to dinner at 7pm vs. 8pm at the end of a long session at the pool. -Rick

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:48:29 GMT

Quote: Originally Posted by The Fortress forums.usms.org/.../viewpost.gif Do people actually do this? I've never seen it happen. It's a bit sick for an actual adult. Not for a 50... but other events, yes I've seen it done in a 50 free (LCM) This smiley has nothing to do with this Post but I've just noticed it and, Ouch! That's me (for the past four weeks - if you add crutches and a wheelchair). Coming soon to a thread near you........... :cane:

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:50:57 GMT

But the spot in the faster heat vacated by the sandbagger will be filled by someone who would normally have been seeded in a slower heat. So that heat will take longer.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:12:14 GMT

Do people actually do this? I've never seen it happen. It's a bit sick for an actual adult. They're not going to admit it.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:40:14 GMT

We went through this before and Rick proved his case. As he has just done again. Now I don't really care about what time you put down to race, but intentionally sandbagging to gain a "look at me" heat win really is pathetic. If you're doing it to rest for another event I understand it, and don't say it's wrong but it will slow things up. For a huge meet like NEM SCY it can drag things out. I think this is what Rick is saying and why he is so vehemently anti bagging!

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

The Fortress — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:17:07 GMT

* My opinion is that sandbagging is not an appropriate solution to "I'm swimming back to back events". Sorry, that's the event order. It's the same thing I tell college coaches at a championship meet when their swimmer is doing back-to-back events. You knew the order of events a long time ago. You knew they'd be back to back. If you can't handle that, then only swim one of the events. (And this is why I shuffle up the event order every year.) * For our New England championship meets, we _do_ put wording in the meet information saying that you are expected to seed yourself with your appropriate best time. So if you come to our meets, you are expected to abide by that. We reserve the right to correct your seed time if we decide that you "made a mistake". * I also know that it's hard to pick seed times. It is. I just entered a SCM meet, which will be, I think, my first competition in about 4 years. It took me about 20 minutes to decide on what my seed times should be. Was I inclined to pad it a bit? Absolutely! I haven't raced in a meet in 4 years! So yes, I understand this concern. -Rick Don't scare me man!! I'm traveling to your meet in Dec. I hate the order of events, but I'm sure everyone has a beef with the order every meet and you could never get an order that would make everyone happy. So no big deal. As a result, I'm probably opting not to swim my favored back-to-back events. But that means I'm going to swim a few events that I've never swum before. I really have no idea what I'll swim, for example, the 200 back in -- so it'll be a real guestimate. Converters are of no use to me. My times drop off a lot from 50s to 100s and I'm sure even more to 200s. I'll do my best, but don't yell at me please. I'm a whimpy sprinter. :bouncing:

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Muppet — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:14:05 GMT

Do people actually do this? I've never seen it happen. It's a bit sick for an actual adult. Not for a 50... but other events, yes (see my above example)

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

The Fortress — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:11:35 GMT

* I really really really hate it when people intentionally sandbag for the purpose of feeling good about themselves because they blew away their heat by 10 seconds in the 50 freestyle. I don't have patience for your fragile ego. Do people actually do this? I've never seen it happen. It's a bit sick for an actual adult.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

osterber — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:41:16 GMT

I'll also take another moment to clarify some of my opinions on sandbagging and seed times... * I really really really hate it when people intentionally sandbag for the purpose of feeling good about themselves because they blew away their heat by 10 seconds in the 50 freestyle. I don't have patience for your fragile ego. All you're doing is bruising someone else's ego in that heat who seeded themselves correctly. * I am not foolish enough to believe that it's possible in masters to have everyone seed themselves perfectly. Masters swimmers have a much larger standard deviation in competition performance than we see in, say, high-school aged club swimming or college swimming. I understand that. I'm not worried about people who are 1 second off in the 50. I'm worried about people who are 10 seconds off in the 50. * My opinion is that sandbagging is not an appropriate solution to "I'm swimming back to back events". Sorry, that's the event order. It's the same thing I tell college coaches at a championship meet when their swimmer is doing back-to-back events. You knew the order of events a long time ago. You knew they'd be back to back. If you can't handle that, then only swim one of the events. (And this is why I shuffle up the event order every year.) * Sandbagging is unfair to the other competitors. If I seed myself correctly, and I'm in, say, the last heat... and you and I are in the same age group and about the same speed... it's unfair to _me_ for you to sandbag and put yourself in the first heat. Part of the reason I pay my entry fees is so that I can come to a meet, and compete against people who are my speed, such as you. Otherwise, a meet isn't any different than people going off the blocks in practice. * For our New England championship meets, we _do_ put wording in the meet information saying that you are expected to seed yourself with your appropriate best time. So if you come to our meets, you are expected to abide by that. We reserve the right to correct your seed time if we decide that you "made a mistake". * I also know that it's hard to pick seed times. It is. I just entered a SCM meet, which will be, I think, my first competition in about 4 years. It took me about 20 minutes to decide on what my seed times should be. Was I inclined to pad it a bit? Absolutely! I haven't raced in a meet in 4 years! So yes, I understand this concern. * As a meet host, I'm always pressured to get more people into the meet. People don't like to get cut out from a meet. I try to get as many people into the pool as possible. We bring in extra officials so that we can not miss a beat on a DQ, and keep the heats moving. (We try to get down to around 7 seconds between heats.) But with 700+ swimmers in a meet, it takes cooperation from everyone to keep the meet moving, and the number one thing is seed times. -Rick

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

osterber — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:35:58 GMT

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

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

slowfish — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:18:40 GMT

I agree with FlyQueen... Practice sandbaggers are the WORST! i have a regular lane partner who pulls out a pull buoy for sets of 100s or more cause she hates going anaerobic. no legs lessens the lung burn. it used to drive me nuts. here i am sucking air and she's just cruising through the set. but, i finally made peace with her habit when i smoked her in a meet :D. ahh....the beauty of karma.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:22:06 GMT

My own pet peeve with sandbagging.... if you're ever at a meet that you feel is taking a really long time, you can start by blaming the sandbaggers. IF you sandbag your entry time, then you contribute to making the meet take longer than it should. -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. Gamesmanship or not, is another story. This is after all, Masters Swimming, where in all probability, swimmers in any one heat will belong to different age groups (and even genders) and are thus only racing against their own expectations (and times).

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Muppet — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:07:57 GMT

Rick, I was wondering when you'd weigh in on here!

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

osterber — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:42:31 GMT

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:03:04 GMT

Sandbagging in swimming is small potatoes, really. In some cases it could actually hinder someone's performance because they don't get to race the faster swimmers. In any event, our final time is the only thing that matters. Beating everyone in your slow heat doesn't affect the final results. There are other sports where sandbagging actually does affect results. For example, my wife figure skates. In adult skating you compete by both age and by ability level. You need to test to change levels. You can usually count on a couple skaters who really should have tested up to the next level, but stayed at a lower level just to get on the podium. I've never sandbagged. I have guessbagged though, I know I will be faster at a meet that I will in practice so I take a training time and shave it back. Sometimes I still do better. If I have a time or a converted time though, I use that.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:02:36 GMT

Guilty - I sandbag whenever I'm going to a meet for the first time in a while and I honestly have no idea what I'll do. But if I start competing regularly, I always enter with my most recent time. If there was sandbagging etiquette, I'd say it would be understandable for newbies and those who haven't competed in a while - but poor etiquette to habitually sandbag if you compete regularly.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:44:10 GMT

Wrongly accusing someone of sandbagging is the worst. This past season I would have been accused many times. At the Y Nats I dropped 13 seconds in the 400 IM. The race just felt good and I had an awesome push from the lady in the lane next to me. That meet I had serveral breakthrough swims. I seeded my self within a second of my best time. The 100 free I was seeded with a 1:05 which was my fastest at the time and went a 1:01.2. I just cut my workouts back and rested for the meet, not a full taper. So I guess if you want to say that someone is sandbagging b/c they are off a few seconds then I guess I would be a sandbagger. For the most part I try to guess at times on things I have never swam in a meet based on what I do in a practice. When I do swim events that I have swam before I will base my time on how I have been feeling in practice and physically. You can't always go your best. I have not been close to a 1:01 since. Even at Federal Way when I was tapered I was slower b/c I put too much pressure on myself and was very nervous. So in general, I agree with Tom, don't accuse anyone of sandbagging unless you know for sure they are. I also agree with those about trying to get rest between races. I would not get upset with anyone that put a no time so they could be in the 1st heat of an event to have rest for another event that they seeded themself correctly. That to me is not about trying to win by alot or get the heat prize, it is about wanting to swim the best they can and get rest.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

knelson — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:25:52 GMT

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:16:11 GMT

At a recent meet, my first masters meet, I just entered what I thought were realistic estimates. I beat most of them except 1 or 2. Also I was not doing the whole pentathalon, since I hate backstroke and did a 1500 free instead of 50 back. So it's not like I was sandbagging to gain an advantage in the pentathalon. In all future meets I'll use my masters time if I have one for that event.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Midas — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:20:40 GMT

I've been guilty of "reverse sandbagging" when I lead my lane in practice. By this, I mean I go out too hard and run out of gas by the end of the set. I've got to learn to pace myself better! It used to make folks in my lane get mad at me because they would try to keep my pace and wind up in the same boat. Now they all know better, keep their distance and reel me in as I run out of energy...

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:11:26 GMT

The only thing worse than sandbagging--is wrongly accusing someone of sandbagging.

RE: Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Former Member — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:56:02 GMT

The worst sandbagging I've seen? Phelps at Worlds this year at the 200 fly. I can't believe he would have seeded himself at 1:54, and then take it out at 1:52.0. Seriously, you would think with all the training he does at Michigan they would know how to get an accurate seed time in....sheesh.