Lap counter rule changes

Wow, how lame and lazy. That must be a governing body issue, and I bet the officials just don't want to get wet. They should either get the poles that they had in Austin or have swimmers be responsible for providing their own counters the way we usually do. This was the first year that I have seen the full card at the bottom of the pool (we'll call my competitive swim career 12 years old), though I have seen many a number fly off. The only time i have ever had an official count for me was at a LCM 800 event, where I was the fastest swimmer. I told them I did not need a counter, but they needed to know when to ring the bell/press the button and the stroke and counted for me anyway I've had the counter drop in my lane 1time and teammates of mine have had it happen as well...but almost exclusively the reason for them being dropped was because something about the cards themselves was defective and the counter was trying to deal with it/ keep it all together as they put them in. I would think that the cards on the pole would be a good alternative if thats their claim: that the cards fall in too often. Because while I've seen a lot of really cruddy cards on a pole--lots of broken numbers and such...I've never seen any fall to the bottom...

Wow, how lame and lazy. That must be a governing body issue, and I bet the officials just don't want to get wet. They should either get the poles that they had in Austin or have swimmers be responsible for providing their own counters the way we usually do. This was the first year that I have seen the full card at the bottom of the pool (we'll call my competitive swim career 12 years old), though I have seen many a number fly off. The only time i have ever had an official count for me was at a LCM 800 event, where I was the fastest swimmer. I told them I did not need a counter, but they needed to know when to ring the bell/press the button and the stroke and counted for me anyway I've had the counter drop in my lane 1time and teammates of mine have had it happen as well...but almost exclusively the reason for them being dropped was because something about the cards themselves was defective and the counter was trying to deal with it/ keep it all together as they put them in. I would think that the cards on the pole would be a good alternative if thats their claim: that the cards fall in too often. Because while I've seen a lot of really cruddy cards on a pole--lots of broken numbers and such...I've never seen any fall to the bottom...