I did a search and didn't see a dedicated thread for this topic, which was inspired by a post by Chris Stevenson in the "How Many Swimmers Per Lane" Thread. I'll reproduce Chris's quote below (I hope you don't mind!) and my response (edited for context). What do others think?
(Hopefully I didn't just miss the thread on this. Sorry if I did--I did run a search!)
As far as passing goes, it is the responsibility of the passer. The slower person should not have to stop or slow -- indeed, s/he should not do anything differently...except perhaps be aware that s/he is being passed, swim in the proper part of the lane (esp not too far to the center) and don't do anything radical like speed up or move over suddenly.
It was interesting to read Chris say that, because I have the opposite view. I think, once alerted by a tap on the feet, the person getting passed should stop at the next wall and get out of the passing person's way. Maybe I feel that way because I swim in a pool with very narrow lanes and it's just not feasible to swim around somebody. This is also the way it works in my lane (the person getting passed will stop to let the faster person by) so that might also influence my view of what is "right". But in any event it seems reasonably fair to me. It's the slower person holding the faster person up, so it seems fair that the slower person defer...
I wonder if people's views are influenced by whether they are usually the "passer" or the "passee"...
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I generally try to just swim past the slower swimmer, but some people make it very hard to pass them around the walls. Suppose we're swimming anti-clockwise in the lane - what I really want the slower swimmer ahead to do is to move over to the left so that they turn and push off straight back down the pool. If they do this, I can swim down their right side coming into the wall, tumble at the side of them as they turn, then my push off will be much better than theirs and I'll be past them soon afterwards. The problem is people who swim down the right hand side all the way to the end, because then you have no choice but to either wait behind them till after they've turned, losing over 5 seconds, because they will be REALLY slow at turning, or to go down the left hand side of them, and hope that they see you rather than moving across into you.
I actually find it quite hard to get past even much slower swimmers without there being some crossover at the wall. If I'm repping 1:10 per 100m, and someone else is repping 2:00, they're probably losing 20 secs of that difference on the turns, leaving around 7 secs difference per 25m length. To do a completely clean overtake, you need to gain around 5m on someone, to go from your hands being a bit behind their feet, to your feet being a bit ahead of their hands. This is actually a lot of ground to gain on someone in a 25m length, and if you only catch them up 10m from the end of the length, there isn't much hope of a clean overtake. The only options are either a) for the faster swimmer to lose a load of time waiting to overtake at the start of the next length, or b) for the slower swimmer to be impacted slightly at the turn. The slower swimmer will lose a lot less time in option b then the faster swimmer will lose in option a.
At my health club, the sign on the wall states that slower swimmers should give way to faster swimmers, and I think this is sensible for the reasons above.
The only time I tap people on the feet is when they set off right in front of me as I'm coming in to turn and I basically push off straight into their feet. I do this to make them aware of how quickly I've arrived behind them in an attempt at education so they don't do it again!
I generally try to just swim past the slower swimmer, but some people make it very hard to pass them around the walls. Suppose we're swimming anti-clockwise in the lane - what I really want the slower swimmer ahead to do is to move over to the left so that they turn and push off straight back down the pool. If they do this, I can swim down their right side coming into the wall, tumble at the side of them as they turn, then my push off will be much better than theirs and I'll be past them soon afterwards. The problem is people who swim down the right hand side all the way to the end, because then you have no choice but to either wait behind them till after they've turned, losing over 5 seconds, because they will be REALLY slow at turning, or to go down the left hand side of them, and hope that they see you rather than moving across into you.
I actually find it quite hard to get past even much slower swimmers without there being some crossover at the wall. If I'm repping 1:10 per 100m, and someone else is repping 2:00, they're probably losing 20 secs of that difference on the turns, leaving around 7 secs difference per 25m length. To do a completely clean overtake, you need to gain around 5m on someone, to go from your hands being a bit behind their feet, to your feet being a bit ahead of their hands. This is actually a lot of ground to gain on someone in a 25m length, and if you only catch them up 10m from the end of the length, there isn't much hope of a clean overtake. The only options are either a) for the faster swimmer to lose a load of time waiting to overtake at the start of the next length, or b) for the slower swimmer to be impacted slightly at the turn. The slower swimmer will lose a lot less time in option b then the faster swimmer will lose in option a.
At my health club, the sign on the wall states that slower swimmers should give way to faster swimmers, and I think this is sensible for the reasons above.
The only time I tap people on the feet is when they set off right in front of me as I'm coming in to turn and I basically push off straight into their feet. I do this to make them aware of how quickly I've arrived behind them in an attempt at education so they don't do it again!
