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'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
* 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.
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)
* 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:
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!
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.
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:
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
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.
