I posted this idea on another thread, where it more or less disappeared into the void. If it thusly disappears again, I will acknowledge that it deserves to disappear.
But before such acknowledgement, one more shot. To wit:
I think it would be kind of fun to come up with some kind of "all around freestyle" ranking. Usually you have your drop dead sprinters on one end, and your never say die distance people on the other end. But what about those of us who are sort of evenly mediocre at all distances?
Since freestyle has the most number of "in the pool" events, maybe we could come up with a freestyle decathalon event where you can score points (say, the inverse of the Top 25 in each event--where no. 1 gets 25 points, and no. 25 gets 1 point), add all these up, and get the cumulative score.
50
100
200
500
1000
1650
half hour swim
hour swim
5k
10k
I think all of the above, with the possible exception of the half hour swim, are now official USMS events. You could argue that the 50, 100, and 200 are sprint-ish events; the 500, 1000, and 1650 (and possibly the half hour swim) are middle-ish or shortish distance events; and the rest are actual distance events.
In any event, I throw this topic out for the rumination of my fellow freestylers in the hopes that someone could come up with a fair rating system. My inverse points concept is only one possibility. Another might be to figure out a person's average per 100 pace for each event, total these, then divide by 10--
example--for the sake of brevity, I will just do this for 5 free events:
24 for 50 = :48
52 for 100 = :52
1:58 for 200 = :59
5:25 for 500 = 1:05
11:40 for 1000 = 1:10
total time: 4:54
divide, int his case by 5, and...
average 100: 59.2
Obviously, if we include the 1650, half hour swim, and hour swim, the average 100 pace would continue to climb upwards.
Anyhow, I am not sure how to weight things fairly, but the aim--it seems to me--would be to have the world's best sprinter, and the world's best distance swimmer--end up scoring roughly the same.
And I am hoping that the ingenuity of my fellow math-inclined (and possibly somewhat bored, with plenty of time on their hands) masters swimmers might be able to combine to create a perfect Freestyle Decathlon event as a possible motivation for all around freestylers to branch out their efforts for compleat bragging rights.
Note: you would have to swim each event in a sanctioned USMS meet and/or postal event to qualify. This would surely encourage more people to do some of the longer swims, and maybe some of the distance people to sign up for actual meets and do short things like 50s! A win-win for attendance.
We could call this--for wont of a better name--the Thornton Index.
Of course, we could call it something else, too, like maybe the Thornton Freestyle Decathlon, or even just "The Jim."
Or the Freestyle Decathlon.
Those longer events would tend to blow most peoples' averages. I can probably do about 1:10 for 100yds in a properly motivated setting. I swam the 6k postal last year at a 1:34/100 pace. I suspect you might have to weight the shorter distances a bit more than the longer distances.
Skip
Count me in!... Er, well, I could do without the 10K, but I'd rather do that than a 50 ***.
I've thought something along these lines would be interesting. I'm a decent freestyler at all distances (top 10s in all distances), and have never had a top ten in any thing but free. Training for the 50 to the 1000, and occasional mile or OW is interesting compared to folks who can actually swim the strokes at the 50 - 200 distances. Its the burden I bear, I guess.
Those longer events would tend to blow most peoples' averages.
Yeah, but that's sort of the idea, isn't it? The people who are good at shorter distances will have an advantage in the short stuff, the distance swimmers will have an advantage in the long stuff. Average it out and you get the best all-around freestyler.
The biggest problem I see is getting enough people to do all the events. You could allow people to have missed events, but then how would you handicap them? You obviously wouldn't just let people skip an event with no penalty because then they could just skip the longest event thereby decreasing their average.
How about this? Have four categories of events. The sprints would be the 50 and 100 free. Middle distance would be 200 and 500 (or 400). Distance would be 1000 (800) and 1650 (1500). Long distance would be the hour swim, the 5K and the 10K. In each one of the four categories you could pick which event you wanted to use, but only one event in each category would count. For example, in the sprint catgeory if you swam a 24 second 50 free and a 50 second 100 free, you'd use the 50 because that equates to a 48 second pace per 100. However, if you never got around to swimming a 50 that year, you could still use the 50 second 100 as your swim in the sprint category. You could also choose to use whatever course (SCY, SCM and LCM) you want. Obviously short course yards would be ideal, but, again, if you didn't get around to swimming the one hour postal you could still used your 10K long course postal result.
I'd consider doing it...
I think that the inverse points scoring method might be a tad more leveling of the playing field than the averaging of paces...but not completely sure?
I think it should be based on time. If someone kicks butt in their 1650 and beats everyone else by 30 seconds they should be awarded for this. Just giving them one more point in the ordinal system wouldn't reflect that like the time would.
Maybe the answer would be to limit the number of events to the following:
50
100
200
500
1000
1650
hour swim
Call it the SCY Freestyle Septathalon. Even the most committed sprinter is used to doing 1-hour or longer swim practices, and if he or she really didn't want to swim for a continuous hour without breaks, they could just use their total yards for an hour practice (no cheating!)
I suppose this might be hard to enforce, so if we had to, just to get things rolling, we could skip the hour swim and make it the SCY Sexathalon, which, now that I think of it, might actually attract more interest.
Imagine being able to wear a T-shirt that proudly declares: #4 in the 2009 USMS SCY Freestyle Sexathalon!
It would force people to go to at least two decent sized meets, since you usually can't swim the 1000 and the 1650 at the same meet.
Too bad that USMS doesn't have the 25 yard event. Our regional Y meets actually allow us to race 25s of all strokes, which is kind of fun--almost impossible to get tired. If we could add the 25, then sprinters would be thrilled--and perhaps willing to add the hour swim!
Does anyone out there know how the actual Decathalon is scored?
Former Member
I'd consider doing it...
I think that the inverse points scoring method might be a tad more leveling of the playing field than the averaging of paces...but not completely sure?
Former Member
Nice idea.
I'd participate.
I agree with Kirk's logic. However, I would guess that distance swimmers would rule this series.
Where's the 25K? I guess that would totally cut down on participation.
:(
I passed this thread along to Marcia Cleveland. She asked me to pass along her reply:
Jim,
This is a fun idea. You actually forgot 2 swims: the 3000 & 6000 yard swim, which are part of the OWLD Postal Series. Have you thought about doing that series, which includes the OHP, 5K, 10K and the 3000 and 6000. If you complete all, you receive a patch, your name in the magazine, and bragging right forever.
There are a few things to consider with this type of series:
1. Ages. Is the M18-24 who goes :26 for the 50 a "better" swimmer than the W90-94 who goes :59 for the same distance (she'd be the star in the eyes of USMS). This series would be something to rank by age groups.
2. The OWLDC has the aforementioned Postal Series (my brainchild in 2002 - long story some other time) which awards those who put all these distances together. Across USMS, some are easy to put together and some are nearly impossible. The amount of planning that goes into completing this series deserves it's own patch. Then there are the REAL Beautiful People of these events: the TIMERS...
3. Ask the Fitness Chair, Marcia Anziano, "Marcia Anziano" , her thoughts about this and tell her Marcia C. thought it was a fun idea. (In USMS Admin, there are 4 of us Marcia's: A. B. C. & M.) The Half Hour Swim is a Fitness event, and this may be it's last year (Marcia A. would know for sure.) Some of this is covered in the Check off Challenge.
4. Not sure if we need to put a gold star and/or a list of rankings here. Instead, just completing all of these events at some point during a calendar year is an accomplishment and may garner something like the Postal Series Patch.
It's a fun idea and has some potential. Thanks for generating an idea like this.
Best Fishes,
Marcia Cleveland
Chair, USMS Open Water Long Distance
E: MarciaC944@gmail.com