I was honestly on the fence about whether I wanted to swim the breaststroke 3 pack or do freestyle at my next meet in a couple of weeks. So I ended up signing up for 5 events today and mailing it in, knowing that I will scratch at least one, maybe 2, events depending on how I feel at the meet.
Are scratchers evil like sandbaggers? I know I had a lot of fun at the last meet with a couple of very close races with people right next to me, but honestly the only times empty lanes have bothered me have been when I've been in 1 and the only other entrant was in 8 or 6. Feels like a weird time trial when that happens. But just an empty lane or 2, no biggie. Does it bug the race directors? Why do I feel vaguely guilty about it? Should I just kick an extra 200 as penance tomorrow (I hate kicking) and forget all about it? Or is it not even something to worry about?
Every meet that I run, we have a check-in deadline, and then we seed the heats.
Scratching is fine, and encouraged. I define scratching as removing yourself from the event _before_ it is seeded. When you scratch, you allow the heats to be condensed, and empty lanes to be filled, and the meet moves more quickly.
No-showing is bad. You should have scratched. No-showing is when you didn't scratch your event, and you were seeded into the heat, and then you just don't show up. If you no-show, you're using a lane that we could have filled. We might have been able to eliminate a whole heat. At any meet I run, when there's an empty lane, we stop for a few seconds to make sure you aren't daydreaming behind the blocks. So we'll probably stop and call for you. That's an extra 10 seconds between heats. That time adds up.
I know there are some meets that are fully pre-seeded, where there is no opportunity to scratch, and every "scratch" is like a no-show... i.e., empty lane. Still, in those cases, notify the referee or clerk of course table, so that they know your lane will be empty, and nobody looks for you.
Sandbagging is among the worst evils. Sandbagging is entering an event with a seed time that is significantly slower than the time you expect to swim. There are many different motivations. Some do it so they have more rest between events. Some do it because they want the smooth water. Some do it because they get a rush out of blowing everyone else in their heat out of the water. They think they look more talented because they beat everyone in their heat by so much. "Daddy won by so much!"
When you sandbag, you are showing (a) selfishness and (b) no respect for the principles of organized competition.
Sandbagging slows down the meet. There are other posts where I have gone into minute detail about how and why, so I won't repeat it here. It slows down the meet. Everyone else at the meet is paying their entry fees for the opportunity to race against people their speed. You may not care if you're racing against the people who are your speed. However, the other people your speed are expecting to race against _you_. That's why they came to the meet in the first place, was to race against _you_. If you sandbag, you are denying them that opportunity.
When you blow away your heat by 2 bodylengths, you may feel good about yourself. However, the person in the next lane may have done a lifetime best swim, but feels lousy about it because they just got blown away by you.
If the seeding by time isn't very important, then what if we ran USMS Nationals such that nobody had a seed time, and we seeded everyone completely randomly. So you ended up in heats with people of completely random speeds. You'd almost never race against someone your speed. Would you go to a meet like that? Not very likely. Because you go to those meets to race. So you decide to sandbag one event, because it's important to you. Selfish. But if everyone else did it, it wouldn't work well. Double-standard anyone?
The order of events gets published well ahead of time. If you don't want to swim events back-to-back, then don't enter two back-to-back events. Simple. Don't put your own requirements above those of the other 500 people in the meet.
(When I say "you" in this soapbox-statement, I'm not addressing any one person in particular.)
-Rick
Every meet that I run, we have a check-in deadline, and then we seed the heats.
Scratching is fine, and encouraged. I define scratching as removing yourself from the event _before_ it is seeded. When you scratch, you allow the heats to be condensed, and empty lanes to be filled, and the meet moves more quickly.
No-showing is bad. You should have scratched. No-showing is when you didn't scratch your event, and you were seeded into the heat, and then you just don't show up. If you no-show, you're using a lane that we could have filled. We might have been able to eliminate a whole heat. At any meet I run, when there's an empty lane, we stop for a few seconds to make sure you aren't daydreaming behind the blocks. So we'll probably stop and call for you. That's an extra 10 seconds between heats. That time adds up.
I know there are some meets that are fully pre-seeded, where there is no opportunity to scratch, and every "scratch" is like a no-show... i.e., empty lane. Still, in those cases, notify the referee or clerk of course table, so that they know your lane will be empty, and nobody looks for you.
Sandbagging is among the worst evils. Sandbagging is entering an event with a seed time that is significantly slower than the time you expect to swim. There are many different motivations. Some do it so they have more rest between events. Some do it because they want the smooth water. Some do it because they get a rush out of blowing everyone else in their heat out of the water. They think they look more talented because they beat everyone in their heat by so much. "Daddy won by so much!"
When you sandbag, you are showing (a) selfishness and (b) no respect for the principles of organized competition.
Sandbagging slows down the meet. There are other posts where I have gone into minute detail about how and why, so I won't repeat it here. It slows down the meet. Everyone else at the meet is paying their entry fees for the opportunity to race against people their speed. You may not care if you're racing against the people who are your speed. However, the other people your speed are expecting to race against _you_. That's why they came to the meet in the first place, was to race against _you_. If you sandbag, you are denying them that opportunity.
When you blow away your heat by 2 bodylengths, you may feel good about yourself. However, the person in the next lane may have done a lifetime best swim, but feels lousy about it because they just got blown away by you.
If the seeding by time isn't very important, then what if we ran USMS Nationals such that nobody had a seed time, and we seeded everyone completely randomly. So you ended up in heats with people of completely random speeds. You'd almost never race against someone your speed. Would you go to a meet like that? Not very likely. Because you go to those meets to race. So you decide to sandbag one event, because it's important to you. Selfish. But if everyone else did it, it wouldn't work well. Double-standard anyone?
The order of events gets published well ahead of time. If you don't want to swim events back-to-back, then don't enter two back-to-back events. Simple. Don't put your own requirements above those of the other 500 people in the meet.
(When I say "you" in this soapbox-statement, I'm not addressing any one person in particular.)
-Rick
