OK, do we want to gnash our teeth, cluck and wag fingers, or take care of the problem? Even if wetsuits are not specifically named in the rules, using one to gain unfair advantage is against the rules and violates the spirit of the sport.
Name the meet and/or competitor to a local or national official (of USMS, not a referee), and this will be taken care of. It is one thing to swim as a joke with a cap festooned with crabs and seaweed, it is another altogether to take advantage of nonexistant meet officiating. This thread is three pages longer than necessary.
It's one thing for a performance to contain a disqualifiable infraction. It's another for that performance to be set aside well after the fact.
Many seemingly obvious stroke infractions (e.g., two hand touch, or clear false starts, or clear early take-off violations, or finishing in the same lane you started in, etc.) get overlooked because the stroke & turn judge may be too busy. And when you start getting up into the 5-10 lane neighborhood for supervision, nothing is obvious anymore (or if you're inexperienced like me, little is obvious either!). Many infractions, some of which we know about, are going to slide through the cracks. But the rule book places the responsibility on "the official within whose jurisdiction the infraction has been committed" (102.15.1), or the referee (103.6.2). If neither of them noticed an infraction, it's over, that swimmer has an official time (unless they were otherwise ineligible).
Let's say for example, a swimmer is swimming breaststroke. Knowingly or unknowingly (it doesn't matter), they finish the race with a one hand touch, which is certainly an infraction, and seemingly is noticed by everyone in the facility. But the stroke & turn judge misses it for whatever reason, and the referee, who might make the DQ himself for such an obvious missed call, was busy taking down order-of-finish. And as everyone checks the scoreboard, they realize the swimmer broke the world record for the event.
But one of opposing coaches is irked, and goes to the referee to complain about the dropped call. The referee asks the stroke & turn judge in the jurisdiction if they could clearly see an infraction on the finish, to which they say "no". By our rules, this situation is over. The swimmer, regrettably, picked up the world record with an illegal performance.
Now, we could "take care of this problem" too in the example. We could set aside the time, refuse to count it any tabulations, et cetera. But how do you do this so far after the fact? Memories are already starting to fade. The benefit of the doubt in this situation certainly would not be going to the swimmer involved. Let's say the imaginary swimmer I mention claims that his fingernail of the other hand grazed the touchpad simultaneously, making a two hand touch. But everyone else (save the 2 officials who didn't see it initially) disagrees with him. Given the burden of the evidence, we could set aside his swim. But how can the original swimmer contest this, even though his swim was ruled at the meet as legal? Certainly he could claim that i) he was not DQed by the officials, and ii) (in his case) the no call was a judgment call, of which further review would be barred.
In the original wetsuit incident, we have an observation that a swimmer was wearing a wetsuit and was not DQed at the meet. Can we DQ this swimmer now, well after the meet, in accordance with our rules? I don't think so. Nor should we.
Instead, we need to figure out what we can do better for the next meet. Certainly we need to make sure all of rules are enforced, and that people bring these issues to the referee at the appropriate time. Maybe we should look at our rules to make this issue more clear (although we should be careful not to stray too far from the USA Swimming rulebook, or the officials, many of whom are USA Swimming judges, won't know the fine distinctions). And maybe we need to also need to look at the quantity and quality of judging. These kinds of things will happen (and I certainly know this, both as a swimmer and a stroke judge), but we don't want them to happen twice.
Patrick King
OK, do we want to gnash our teeth, cluck and wag fingers, or take care of the problem? Even if wetsuits are not specifically named in the rules, using one to gain unfair advantage is against the rules and violates the spirit of the sport.
Name the meet and/or competitor to a local or national official (of USMS, not a referee), and this will be taken care of. It is one thing to swim as a joke with a cap festooned with crabs and seaweed, it is another altogether to take advantage of nonexistant meet officiating. This thread is three pages longer than necessary.
It's one thing for a performance to contain a disqualifiable infraction. It's another for that performance to be set aside well after the fact.
Many seemingly obvious stroke infractions (e.g., two hand touch, or clear false starts, or clear early take-off violations, or finishing in the same lane you started in, etc.) get overlooked because the stroke & turn judge may be too busy. And when you start getting up into the 5-10 lane neighborhood for supervision, nothing is obvious anymore (or if you're inexperienced like me, little is obvious either!). Many infractions, some of which we know about, are going to slide through the cracks. But the rule book places the responsibility on "the official within whose jurisdiction the infraction has been committed" (102.15.1), or the referee (103.6.2). If neither of them noticed an infraction, it's over, that swimmer has an official time (unless they were otherwise ineligible).
Let's say for example, a swimmer is swimming breaststroke. Knowingly or unknowingly (it doesn't matter), they finish the race with a one hand touch, which is certainly an infraction, and seemingly is noticed by everyone in the facility. But the stroke & turn judge misses it for whatever reason, and the referee, who might make the DQ himself for such an obvious missed call, was busy taking down order-of-finish. And as everyone checks the scoreboard, they realize the swimmer broke the world record for the event.
But one of opposing coaches is irked, and goes to the referee to complain about the dropped call. The referee asks the stroke & turn judge in the jurisdiction if they could clearly see an infraction on the finish, to which they say "no". By our rules, this situation is over. The swimmer, regrettably, picked up the world record with an illegal performance.
Now, we could "take care of this problem" too in the example. We could set aside the time, refuse to count it any tabulations, et cetera. But how do you do this so far after the fact? Memories are already starting to fade. The benefit of the doubt in this situation certainly would not be going to the swimmer involved. Let's say the imaginary swimmer I mention claims that his fingernail of the other hand grazed the touchpad simultaneously, making a two hand touch. But everyone else (save the 2 officials who didn't see it initially) disagrees with him. Given the burden of the evidence, we could set aside his swim. But how can the original swimmer contest this, even though his swim was ruled at the meet as legal? Certainly he could claim that i) he was not DQed by the officials, and ii) (in his case) the no call was a judgment call, of which further review would be barred.
In the original wetsuit incident, we have an observation that a swimmer was wearing a wetsuit and was not DQed at the meet. Can we DQ this swimmer now, well after the meet, in accordance with our rules? I don't think so. Nor should we.
Instead, we need to figure out what we can do better for the next meet. Certainly we need to make sure all of rules are enforced, and that people bring these issues to the referee at the appropriate time. Maybe we should look at our rules to make this issue more clear (although we should be careful not to stray too far from the USA Swimming rulebook, or the officials, many of whom are USA Swimming judges, won't know the fine distinctions). And maybe we need to also need to look at the quantity and quality of judging. These kinds of things will happen (and I certainly know this, both as a swimmer and a stroke judge), but we don't want them to happen twice.
Patrick King
