2008 Senior Circuit A&M Friday, May 16 - Sunday, May 18

Hey, don't blame USA Swimming, blame the meet hosts. The rules are very specific on pool length tolerance. Any negative tolerance is unacceptable. Sorry, but in my opinion you can't just decide to let the rules slide. Again, all the blame is with TAMU in this one. I do agree this is terrible for the swimmers, but please place the blame where it belongs. USA swimming can take a swimmer oriented approach like they do when applying the swim rules. The benefit of the doubt always goes to the swimmer. Not exactly the same thing, but close in my mind. The pool was not a foot short, but .03 meters short which is just a few hundredths in most races. Quite easy to give the kids a break under these extenuating circumstances. No problem putting the blame on TAMU, but USA swimming can do the kids right.

At the recent Colonies Zone Championships, I watched in curiousity as the white-shirted officials took the tape to each side and the middle of the pool prior to warm-ups. Seems now like pretty royal treatment when so much more was on the line at A&M. Hooray to USMS for running such a good show so often. Virginia High School Championships a few years ago suffered the short-pool syndrome as well, I believe, :2cents:a few disappointed record-setters. DV

Sooner: Don't worry about your sons Senior Circuit A cuts not counting, they will count. Those rules are inforced very modestly. I don't know about the junior cuts, but I think those will count too. I know you are frustrated, but everything will be fine!

There's no doubt though. The pool was 49.97 meters, not 50. I do understand what you're saying though, but I question where it stops. What if the next pool is 0.05m short? 0.10m? 0.25m? When do you say it's too much? Why build pools to be 50m then if 49.97m is fine? The US can automatically take a 0.02 advantage on the rest of the world! :laugh2: I understand what you are saying, but how often has this come up. Very very rare. Will you call my kids and explain to them that the cuts they made by a substantial margin will not count. they would have made them in a 50.1 meter pool. I agree with BlainesApprentice that their really is no harm in letting them take these times and swim in the meets they qualified for. That will not be a burden at all. We all showed up at this meet in good faith, went through the excitement of great swims only to have it ripped away by a "non swimmer" oriented decision. Sometimes judgement needs to be used and this is one such case. One outcome to prevent such an occurrence in the future is to require meets above a certain level to be certified in advance. Cost would be low. That would address your last point.

I could care less if it was a on day local masters meet, a C little splashers meet or the Olympics; if it were me or my kid, I'd be totally PO'd!! hey, they could learn something from US masters!! Way, way, way below the standard for USMS!!! Way to go USMS for these rules - the integrity of top tens and masters records is way beyond SWIMS. I really feel for the kids and their parents. I never swam a meet with USS in which my times did not "count." How heartbreaking!! However, with masters I've had a totally different experience with swims and entire meets not "counting" due to pool measurement issues. Michelle, I'm guessing that you've had all your swims count for top 10, correct? USMS has the rules in place; however, they are not always followed. I had 8 swims not count one year for Top 10s at a USMS sanctioned meet. Same went for a friend of mine at another meet (one of his times did not count.) Attended another meet which was to be a SCM championship and due to the pool falling short, no SCM meet. Was turned into SCY meet while we were at the meet. Consequently, I had no SCM meet times for that year. So for me, it's either buy a laser or tape measure (as recommended by discussion board members) and harass officials (which they don't seem to like BTW), OR not worry about it and be happy being a lap swimmer who likes to compete at times. Not into lasers, so oh well!

I have missed out on about 10 USMS top ten swims. That is why I am now the top ten recorder for North Texas and one of the most anal people when it comes to pool measurement and championing our LMSC to buy a laser. I'm also an Aggie!!! Back to the initial thread topic - maybe some good news for crossover masters is that if USA swimming adopts "the bulkhead measurement rules", then times can count for USMS swimmers since the measurements would be done by the meet host. That would be sooooooooo awesome!!! Ande started a thread on the next TSC meet; I hope all the kids (and masters) swim really, really fast!! Ande too!!!!! Still waiting for any Aggie jokes... Ah ha! So then this kind of thing has happened frequently to other masters swimmers?! Sorry you lost out on so many T10s. People @ USMS tried to tell me it was rare. Nothing like doing something yourself to get things done. I too toyed with the idea of doing the measurements myself w/ the official or becoming one. But, I'd rather just get in and swim and let the chips fall where they may. Looks like the lasers run $350 to $450 - something worth thinking about for those who care. Less than the cost of a LZR. Did 1 USS meet this season already and have more to go. Just not worth the trouble - too many lasers and LZRs. I couldn't imagine being at SR State and pulling a laser to count T10s only to find out that the pool is short!

Here you go. One google, and well...here's the start of the first of 202,000 pages of aggie jokes: There were three Aggies huddled around each other at a local bar. All of a sudden, they jumped up and yelled, "Yeah, 45! 45!" The bartender goes down to them and asks, "45? What are you guys so excited about?" One of the Aggies speaks up: "We just finished a jigsaw puzzle. The box said 2 to 3 years, and we did it in 45 days!" What is the difference between an Aggie and a carp? One is a bottom feeding scum sucker and the other is a fish. Did you hear about the Aggie terrorist who tried to blow up the Longhorn team bus. He burned his lip on the tailpipe. How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, but he gets 3 hours credit. What is the difference between the Aggies and Rice Crispies? Rice Crispies know what to do in a bowl. I have missed out on about 10 USMS top ten swims. That is why I am now the top ten recorder for North Texas and one of the most anal people when it comes to pool measurement and championing our LMSC to buy a laser. I'm also an Aggie!!! Back to the initial thread topic - maybe some good news for crossover masters is that if USA swimming adopts "the bulkhead measurement rules", then times can count for USMS swimmers since the measurements would be done by the meet host. That would be sooooooooo awesome!!! Ande started a thread on the next TSC meet; I hope all the kids (and masters) swim really, really fast!! Ande too!!!!! Still waiting for any Aggie jokes...

The benefit of the doubt always goes to the swimmer. Not exactly the same thing, but close in my mind. There's no doubt though. The pool was 49.97 meters, not 50. I do understand what you're saying though, but I question where it stops. What if the next pool is 0.05m short? 0.10m? 0.25m? When do you say it's too much? Why build pools to be 50m then if 49.97m is fine? The US can automatically take a 0.02 advantage on the rest of the world! :laugh2:

Hey, don't blame USA Swimming, blame the meet hosts. The rules are very specific on pool length tolerance. Any negative tolerance is unacceptable. Sorry, but in my opinion you can't just decide to let the rules slide. Again, all the blame is with TAMU in this one. I do agree this is terrible for the swimmers, but please place the blame where it belongs.

I think it would be reasonable to let kids keep their cuts that they earned at the pool this weekend, but not to honor any records that were set. The cuts don't mean much--except an opportunity to swim the race again in a pool that is the right length...it wouldn't be horribly inconvenient to anyone if they honored the cuts...especially since the pool was so close to the correct length. I think that would be the honorable thing to do just because they didn't check it and they should have, obviously. I can understand records not standing just because its not fair to take away someone elses record when this swimmer swam "less" to achieve the same thing.