What's the best way to get a fair order of events?

you won't like my answer get involved with the politics of your usms region run for office get elected and be a change maker you could host a meet and select the meet order you wanted fair is hard to balance the national meet order stuck 4 of my best events together on the last day 50 bk, 100 fl, 200 im & 100 fr I decided to skip the 100 fl & 200 IM the good thing about nats is that it's a big meet with lot's of rest between events so your event choices involve sacrifice I was very pleased with the meet order of the Longbeach Meet SCM I did in December each day seemed to be broken into 3 sections and one of my events fell in each section my suggestion is to swim several meets but space out your events at Nats to maximize your performance potential 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.

Oh, seeing Rick's post reminded me: this year at his meet there were two freestyle events together: the women's 500 and 100. And since the women always swim first (can you maybe reverse that next year?) it was a low rest affair for such a big meet. I definitely felt the 500 somewhere around 55 yards into the 100.

Oh, seeing Rick's post reminded me: this year at his meet there were two freestyle events together: the women's 500 and 100. And since the women always swim first (can you maybe reverse that next year?) it was a low rest affair for such a big meet. I definitely felt the 500 somewhere around 55 yards into the 100. That was probably the largest problem with our event order this year. What I can say is -- it won't happen again next year. Having those two events back-to-back (note - there was a 30-minute warmup period between them) was the only place we had two of the same strokes in a row. (But again - there was a 30-minute warmup between.) I guess I chalk it up to every meet has to make a compromise here or there. We've toyed around with having men swim first from time to time. We've especially thought about it for our distance day, and having the men's 1000 or 1650 go before the women's event. What we have found, however, in talking to people, watching behavior, etc., etc... is that unfortunately, swimmers at meets are really bad about following directions. They're really bad about reading instructions, etc. People go on auto-pilot, and do what they're used to and what they expect. So I fear that if we had men go first, everyone would get confused, and piles of people would miss events because they wouldn't have followed the instructions properly. -Rick

OK, here's one alternate (but admittedly not very well-thought-out) proposal. Feel free to tear it apart.... Personally, I'd put the relays in the middle and the end (as opposed to the beginning and end). That can help break up the session a bit. (And from a meet staff perspective... it's hard to start with a relay.) -Rick

You will NEVER make everyone happy.

OK, here's one alternate (but admittedly not very well-thought-out) proposal. Feel free to tear it apart.... CZ Meet, Proposal "A" --------------------- Friday 1000 Free 1650 Free Saturday 400 Mixed Free Relay 200 Mixed Medley Relay 100 Free 200 Back 50 Fly 400 IM 50 Back 200 Free 100 IM 200 *** 800 Free Relay 400 Medley Relay 200 Free Relay Sunday 800 Mixed Free Relay 400 Mixed Medley Relay 200 Mixed Free Relay 100 Back 200 Fly 100 *** 50 Free 500 Free 200 IM 50 *** 100 Fly 400 Free Relay 200 Medley Relay I like this much better. And at least it's a change!!! Since no one can ever be happy, and no one really expects ideal events every meet, change is good. Jim is right, CZ never seems to change its order of events. I'm happy to submit this version or others to the meet director. I like the idea of relays in the middle. But for those that swim relays (and give up individual events to do so), this doesn't really give you extra rest. Rick: At the NE Champs in December (I realize you weren't the meet director), the 50 and 100 back and the 50 and 100 fly were ALL on the same day (sat). The 50 and 100 free were on the same day as well (sun). Ande: You're right. I can't take your advice. I simply can't clone myself any further. Maybe when my kids grow up. However, I am happy to talk to whoever is in charge and won't be shy to do so. In fact, at CZ, I did complain to the meet director (my coach) about the women's events being so much quicker. The solution would be to start each event in the men's and women's pool simultaneously so the women get as much rest. I also told the meet director that we need a break before end of the day relays. She agreed. Hopefully, next year, we can change things. Chris: The men wouldn't necessarily need the same 10-15 minute break if the men's events are going much more slowly than the women's events. You effectively had a built in break. Frankly, I think I should, within my permitted travel that does not lead to divorce, try to swim in meets that last really really long. I'd rather stay late at a meet I've already planned to attend than get no rest and swim fewer events. NE SCY sounds like a great meet for me.

One simple result for the Colonies Zone as well as LMSC's of VA and PV, get 1 person to do the entry forms!!!! That way the order of events from meet to meet under their control can be altered. One person in charge of the order of events for each LMSC would make a huge difference. The order would change from meet to meet and from that particula meet to the next time it's held (that would benefit the Zone meet). THe OMS order of events is attached. It has worked well for many years with me only getting 1 complaint. I still do their entry forms and with the chart, it's easy (credit to Bob Bruce for coming up with this chart). If one meet is column B, the next is column A. One year it just so happened that one meet was B and the next year it hit on B again. I changed it to A so there wouldn't be the same order of events back to back. The relays are in the middle and I change them up depending on what events are before them. I try not to put the Free relays after a free event, for example. But with every meet director in some LMSC's doing their own, "pull it out of the air" order of events, there will be problems and people upset. I boycoted the Albatross this year because of the order. The sprints all together and the 200's together. Doesn't make sense to me!

Volunteers do that stuff and I'm reasonably certain they didn't single me out for misery. Always? Swim meets can be quite lucrative, especially when you have high entry fees like CZ. If it's a for profit business, they can take consumer desires into consideration. Moreover, our meet director is paid for her coaching job. That's not to say there are not many, many volunteers, including all the timers and stroke and turn officials. There obviously are. That's why more thank yous from swimmers is probably a good idea too.

Or is having all heats of an event swum at the same time sacrosanct at all costs? The extreme form of this would be to run through all the events two or more times, which would certainly be ideal for allowing swimmers to space their events out as they pleased, but would not be good at all at ensuring the fastest swimmers are all in one heat. Charley Foxtrot. I think this could get confusing pretty quickly.

Don't mean to be argumentative but I doubt many meets are lucrative. How many swimmers were in this meet? 200? Entry fees $40 or so? That means $8,000. Their costs that day include all the staff for the weekend including lifeguards, the meet director, the electricity, the chemicals, the repayment of bonds to pay for the pool, etc. If swim meets were lucrative they'd have them all the time. One of the reasons there are so few indoor 50M pools is that they cost ~$10M or more to build one that can host meets. They almost never get built with private funds because there is no return on the investment. That's why they are usually attached to universities or school districts and funded by bond money. I know this is a tangent discussion. Sorry. No problem. There were 473 swimmers. If you swam a lot of events, fees were over $50. Staff (lifeguards, etc.) were already there. They would be there whether there was a meet or open swim or USS swimming. The meet director is a member of GMU. The timers were all GMU students and the officials and meet people volunteered. People running the meet were mosting GMU swimmer folk. They seemed to think they did pretty well on the meet. Lindsay's suggestion is a good one, but I can see it could get confusing. Personally, I'd rather have more rest than ensure I was in a heat with all comparable swimmers. I tend to swim against myself anyway.