The 100 IM is the most fun event on the Masters swimming short course schedule. Takes you back to being 9 years old again.
We should add it to the long course schedule. Who really needs a wall to change strokes? The rule could be that the swimmer must change from fly to back and from *** to free in a transition zone in the middle of the pool. The zone could be markers on the lane lines or the transition must begin when the head reaches a marker at 25m and must end before the feet pass the same marker.
Good idea or impractical?
I'm probably overthinking this, but how would you legally transition from fly to back? Thinking about doing 100 IMs in a long course pool, most people probably take a one-armed fly stroke to flip themseleves onto their backs. That would then be an illegal fly and you should be DQed. So, unless you said anything goes in the transition zone I'm not sure how you could do this, and if you did say "anything goes" that would cause problems, too.
The Carbondale long course meet does the 100 IM and it is fun. You have to do your transition between the colored sections on the lane lines, and they give you plenty of time to do it. Nadine gave me a handy tip, fly until you are almost to the end of the transition, then flip, *** to the beginning of the transition and then switch to free. Common sense, but most people did not do it, and it gave me a good advantage. Good time.
I'm probably overthinking this, but how would you legally transition from fly to back? .... So, unless you said anything goes in the transition zone I'm not sure how you could do this, and if you did say "anything goes" that would cause problems, too.
I think the best way around this is to add another rule that states the swimmers must chug a beer before they can leave the transition zone. That way they will already be vertical, and can transition into backstroke more fluidly.
We will probably want to go with beer that has been dyed either green or red so the refs can easily determine who really drank their beer and who spilled most of it into the pool.
Obviously, puking before the race is over is an automatic DQ.
All right--to make the transitions more fluid and easier to judge, the order should be fly-***-back-free. Fly-to-*** would be pretty easy and doesn't require a front-to-back. Back-to-free just requires the same motion as a regular backstroke turn. Problem solved.
I've thought about this before, too. I think you would need something like a transition zone (probably 5 meters) where you would change strokes. Here's the problem, though. If you allow a zone, people are going to try to switch from *** to free as early in the transition zone as possible and this is going to make judging very difficult. I certainly wouldn't want to be the judge responsible for transition zone DQs!
