having just recently competed in the 2nd annual lake quassapaug open water festival, i can honestly say that stage racing has become my favorite way to kill a day (or a week).
i will be heading out to austin in october to participate in the highland lakes monster challenge....5 lakes in 5 days.
not to limit the pleasure of such a format to open water, i think there are tremendous possibilities for adding such challenges to the standard pool racing format.
here are a few suggestions:
50 of each stroke and the 100 im
100 of each stroke and the 200 im
200 of each stroke and the 400 im
1000, 1650 and 400 im
etc.
to clarify, each participant would be scored by their combined time.
Parents
Former Member
A little off topic but one of the things that I things that helped make the whole Phelps thing interesting this summer was the spacing out over several days. One of the problems with swimming as a spectator sport is that the races are mostly a minute or two long, that limits the degree of engagement. With Phelps it was a multiday challenge and each race was essential to his drive for eight golds. I think that made it interesting and engaging in a way that no single race could be.
It's too bad that Masters meets don't lend themselves to this sort of drama, even pentathlons tend to scrunch the events in so much that it is hard to do well in all of them.
A little off topic but one of the things that I things that helped make the whole Phelps thing interesting this summer was the spacing out over several days. One of the problems with swimming as a spectator sport is that the races are mostly a minute or two long, that limits the degree of engagement. With Phelps it was a multiday challenge and each race was essential to his drive for eight golds. I think that made it interesting and engaging in a way that no single race could be.
It's too bad that Masters meets don't lend themselves to this sort of drama, even pentathlons tend to scrunch the events in so much that it is hard to do well in all of them.
