Sandbaggers' Club

It was the 9/23/07 pentathlon at oak harbor, WA. And I mis-remembered. It didn't mention sandbagging, it mentioned abusing the disqualification system. They added penalties to your cumulative pentathlon time if you were DQ'd in various events. I assume this rule was to prevent people from say, swimming freestyle during a breaststroke event, etc. "Swimmers who try to abuse the disqualification system will be eliminated from the competition."

Here we go, here's the one I was thinking of. It was the 9/9/07 Patriot Games pentathlon in Camas, WA. It said "Entering sandbagged times to get added rest time between events or calm water is discouraged. Please be fair to all." This one didn't threaten disqualification, that was the first one I posted.

At USMS Nationals, the meet director is actually allowed to change the entry times of those swimmers he feels are sandbagging: Then maybe the meet director can fix ande's typo since he's seeded about 5 seconds too slow in a 50! Since my entries are all either exact time, faster than recent times or close to my bests upon entry, I think I'm fine. I don't really understand why someone would sandbag in Nationals anyway when there is typically a lot of rest unless you happen to have back-to-back events. Which I do, because I am a fly-backer. Perhaps one year the 100 and 200 free or the 50 and 100 free can be back-to-back instead. :violin: :dunno: So the freestylers can have less rest for a change.

The reason I only swim the 1650/1500 3 times a year (once in each course) is because it is too painful! I have only been back to swimming 4 years and was a sprinter in my youth. Who would have thought me a distance swimmer. This season I changed teams, swimming with the kids for 9 months doing doubles, Rick Benner as my coach, had already dropped lots of time in my events. Lots of stroke corrections and hard work, as well as sprints for once in my adult life. Can he turn this old lady with a bad back, into an under 21 minute miler and an under 1 minute 100 freestyler? Let's see. I hope I am a BIG SANDBAGGER this time around!

Since I started this thread as a joke, and it has not been treated as such, I decided to end it on Jaegermeister's funny post.

"Indeed, some would think hiding behind an alias to call someone old and odious and a liar might itself be a bit odious. " Does it rise to the level of World Poverty?

Deleted.

At USMS Nationals, the meet director is actually allowed to change the entry times of those swimmers he feels are sandbagging: Article 104.5.5.A (11): If a swimmer enters a deck-seeded event with a time significantly slower than his/her recently recorded time, the meet director may, after notifying the swimmer, change the seeded time to a realistic time.

Sorry, I find the idea of changing your entry time because you want more rest or because you want better pool conditions (or want to show off) among the most odious of actions. You are taking the process of seeding--intended to provide fair and equitable competition--and perverting it for your own purposes by overtly trying to gain a competitive advantage. Take the order of events you get and then put down a performance that will have people singing songs about your glorious destruction of the field when you trash 5 straight events. Patrick King First, of all, this thread is the Sandbaggers' Club, not the Criticism of All Inherently Evil Sandbaggers. Start a new thread for your complaints. Your quoted comment is BS, IMHO. I don't know anyone who NTs an event for the "glorious destruction" of heat 1. Absolutely no one. I think this is a mythical construct with no basis in reality held over the head of sandbaggers in an attempt to guilt them into what others deem appropriate behavior. I also have no idea why it is "odious" to want more rest. The order of events is often undesirable, and can have a disproportionate impact on certain swimmers. (And frequently the order of events is the same year after year.) After you have trained your ass off and invested a lot of time and effort and money in getting to a meet, perhaps impinging on family time or events in the process, is it really "odious" to want to do as well as you can? Sorry, I don't buy it. Also, in my most recent meet, the women were done way before the men, and had much less rest. And the older you get, the more rest your need. So some 25 year old criticizing me for wanting more rest is not really going to bother me for a nanosecond. When they're my age, maybe they'll understand. The point is that there are already so many inequities built into meets, do we have to begrudge people more rest? Just seems really petty to me. As scyfreestyler said, we're all adults. I don't think sandbaggers need to be "outted" as Lindsay suggests. If masters swimmers aren't permitted to factor in their own life situations and physical issues, that would be truly unfortunate and likely discourage competing.

Sandbagging is a very selfish action. Nonsense! There are so many worse evils in the world, this is hardly worth responding to. "Very selfish?" Uh, really over-exaggerating here. It is utterly commonplace and not on the level of world poverty. Go start your own thread, Mr. Alias. :mooning: