Order of Events at Masters National

I swim the 400 IM occasionally, but I totally agree with The Good Smith. No one needs to watch the 400IM and the 500 Free except for the crazy people that swim those events. The distance people can use the sprints to warm up for their evening swims or spend the day sightseeing. Sprinters want to warm up in the competition pool and the only way to do that is to get there early for warm-ups so it messes up the sleeping in part. At a minimum, just start out the first day of the meet with the 200 Free or 200 IM to give the meet officials some time to adjust, but not kill the start of the meet.

I am sure we all like watching swimming and we all have fond memories of epoch swims. I will watch just about any swimming from the elite to the beginner and any distance, but I think we would probably be in the minority. I just think scheduling the longer events first (especially on the first day of a national meet) gets it off to a extremely slow start. Besides, sprinters need more sleep after the first night because they have spent weeks losing sleep worrying about whether they are going to hit their taper or not.

John, Always good to see you take the sensitive approach to these issues. A few people have picked up on one of the reasons for the order - it gives the sprinters time to sleep in. In outdoor meets, it also gives the distance swimmers a chance to swim before it gets too hot. This is more of an issue in an event that lasts 6 minutes than 21 seconds. In Tempe, it is one of the reasons we chose to put distance events first. The second reason it perhaps less obvious. While our meet hosts typically do a great job, it is very hard to start the meet with the 50 free as you suggest. In a short amount of time, there are more swimmers racing than at any other point in the meet (due to the short time it takes to complete a race). In a short course meet, there would typically be a heat starting every 15 - 20 seconds. This requires you volunteers to be on their toes. When we start with a distance event, it allows time for a few mistakes to occur, get corrected and not affect the timeline or quality of the meet. The same would not be true with the 50 free. There is no reason why we can't start some days with a distance race and end other days with a distance race. The process for determining the order is a subcommittee of the championship committee puts together 5-7 schedules. Then, the house of delegates votes on their three favorite. So, what you see are the personal biases of your volunteer leadership.

The second reason it perhaps less obvious. While our meet hosts typically do a great job, it is very hard to start the meet with the 50 free as you suggest. In a short amount of time, there are more swimmers racing than at any other point in the meet (due to the short time it takes to complete a race). In a short course meet, there would typically be a heat starting every 15 - 20 seconds. This requires you volunteers to be on their toes. When we start with a distance event, it allows time for a few mistakes to occur, get corrected and not affect the timeline or quality of the meet. The same would not be true with the 50 free. From an administrative standpoint, this can be a big deal. The sheer amount of paperwork involved in running a big meet such as nationals is phenomenal, and having an admin referee only defrays it somewhat. Less alert timers is also a problem because these timers are slower to activate the button at the end of the race. The button is the main mechanism that is used to determine whether or not a timing malfunction has occurred with the touchpad. Generally speaking, if there is more than 0.30 second difference between the time registered by the touchpad and the time from the button. When that happens, a lot of human intervention has to occur to determine whether the touchpad time is accurate enough for the official time, or whether an adjustment needs to occur. When a LOT of these determinations have to be made, the results get delayed, and the situation makes a long day very long. That's assuming heroic measures don't have to be taken to determine official times (and lest you think this is confined to low level meets, I got a story from a referee this year of reconstructing a time from almost nothing at a major Grand Prix meet!). And that's ignoring the other kinds of disasters that can occur.... As a swimmer, I personally don't fret about the order of events. Sure, I'd like my events spaced out so I can give my best efforts, but I know that that's not going to happen all the time. I'll take my races wherever, whenever, whatever, in any order, but no breaststroke. Patrick King Postscript edit: I guess it's just my weird personality but I LOVE to watch swimming. I love to watch 20 year olds, 85 year olds, men and women. Mel's obviously never watched me swim. My races are so horrific that the 60 and 70 year olds kicking my tail want to get out of the pool so fast so they don't get contaminated me (or as was the case of the solo, 6 minute, 400IM I swam when I was 14--pray that it actually ends!).

Dear Mr. Abusive Meet Announcer: (Mr. Gill) To your knowledge have there been proposals to place the distance events at the end of the day or not? Secondly, if the timers are too mentaly "out of it" so early in the morning to handle the speed of the heats in the 50 free, then stick the 100 free first. Don't kill the tone of the meet each morning with long events first. John Smith (voted most irritating master swimmer 2007)

Evil One, You need to train a little harder and shorten your taper. You don't want to get out of shape for Masters Nationals. John Smith

I agree with Fort and Jeff,let the plodders get up early and let me sleep.Being on the West Coast,when I travel east those early events are a bear,let Jim Clemmons get up in what feels like the middle of the night and LET ME SLEEP.:thhbbb:

I think some of the posters on this thread, are actually on the wrong thread. You were probably looking for this one: forums.usms.org/showthread.php . The reason distance folks get to go first is twofold. They handle it better and they get to the bars first. Except maybe on some Thursdays. :)

Are wall lanes preferable? I ended up with mostly wall lanes for this weekend's zone meet (I am not going to SC nationals), by entering with my actual times. Just a coincidence.

I guess it's just my weird personality but I LOVE to watch swimming. I love to watch 20 year olds, 85 year olds, men and women. I love watching the mile. One of my greatest memories was watching Karen Burton at 1993 (I think) SCY nationals in Santa Clara beat up on most of the men swimming the event. I like to see Jim McConica and Graham Johnston swim those distances. I like to watch the 400 IM. I like to see Dennis Baker swim the 200 fly. Another of my great memories was watching Bill Specht and Scott Shake in 2001 LC at Federal Way both break the world record in the 200 back. I've watched some incredible matches in the 50 free. I can vividly remember my buddy Liz Hobbs race Tracy Moll in the finals in Santa Clara in 2001. I also saw Gary Hall Jr break the master's world record in the 50 fly at Mission Viejo in a beautiful swim. If you don't like to watch swimming, maybe you don't like swimming. If you don't like swimming, for crying out loud, take up bowling! It's your sport, take advantage of it and then you won't have to read about the results at a meet where you supposedly attended. As an aside, the problem with sprinters, mostly, is that they like their swim races like their sex: over before there's any involvement on their part. Uh oh, am I going to get another black eye from the Hulk?