Don't want to start a screamfest, but the controversial issue of "getting enough rest" between events led me to wonder --- how do you get an order of events that is somewhat uniformly fair?
Since I'm apparently challenging John Smith for most annoying masters swimmer, I'll just say that I have been aggravated by the order of events in most of my recent meets. As a fly-backer-er, somewhat odd, it seems that those events are always close together. I guess the fly-*** or fly-free or all free combos are much more common. I have basically given up swimming the 100 IM and haven't swum the 100 back in SCY in 2 years. My last meet, the 100 fly and 100 back were within minutes of each other, and unlike Chris Stevenson and Jeff Roddin, I admittedly didn't have the chops to do both. At my Dec. taper meet, all my best events were on Saturday. At anther meet, all the 200s were in the first half of the meet and all the sprints in the second half, annoying almost everyone and causing a lot of scratches. I have also noticed the inequity between rest for freestylers and strokers. Folks entering the 5 pack freestyle (50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 or 1650), very common set of entries, always have adequate rest because these events are always spaced out pretty well. So it's pretty easy for freestylers to think others are whiney, since they never experience the rest problem.
So how do you fix these inequities and get a fair lineup of events? At a minimum, can't meet directors change the order of events each year to attempt to provide some equity? Or have a 15 minute break scheduled somewhere? This would probably reduce whining and the apparently repugnant practice of sandbagging to get more rest. Since I only swim 5 meets a year or so, it'd be nice to attempt to swim reasonably well. Swimming more meets is just not an option. There's obviously no way to make everyone happy all the time, but it seems like the system could be improved.
Dennis Baker had some good thoughts on this topic in our Oregon news letter a couple years back:
I've heard this exact same advice from another world record holder. For optimal performance, 2 events a day max and no relays.
TJ: You can't put any of the same stroke back-to-back, and none of them are. But there are 5-6 freestyle events and only 3 events if you specialize in a single stroke. Since almost no one does just one stroke at a multi-day meet, the order of events still ends up favoring the 5 pack freestylers, who will always be guaranteed rest.
Nothing will ever be perfectly fair, that's why we need to change it up!
Dennis Baker had some good thoughts on this topic in our Oregon news letter a couple years back:
I've heard this exact same advice from another world record holder. For optimal performance, 2 events a day max and no relays.
TJ: You can't put any of the same stroke back-to-back, and none of them are. But there are 5-6 freestyle events and only 3 events if you specialize in a single stroke. Since almost no one does just one stroke at a multi-day meet, the order of events still ends up favoring the 5 pack freestylers, who will always be guaranteed rest.
Nothing will ever be perfectly fair, that's why we need to change it up!
