It is here!

Thanks Frank. Wow, that's interesting. Seems like I've heard quite a lot, including from Jeff, that if the meet director/referee announces the time trial at the beginning of the day and opens it to all, the time counts. This "announcment" point was also one of the reasons my time was initially disallowed. Perhaps more meet directors should consider putting a time trial slot on the order of events for their meet, if they think it won't run too long. (Rutgers was done around 1:00 or so.) USS swimming seems far ahead of us in some respects. This would certainly help people who have order of event issues. Paul, there were quite a few masters swimmers in the dual sanctioned yards meet I swam in in NC. First time I had ever seen that, really. Fortress: I was involved in sanctioning a time trial during the 2007 Michigan Masters State Championship. I remember at first I was skeptical about this because of what was said back in 2001 on these forums about time trials. But the organization running the meet ran time trials in USA meets and wanted to offer them for masters. As a guide to set this up, I used the 2007 USA Swimming Rule book because reference to this in the USMS Rule book was a little vague plus I know most of the time we use the rules and procedures of USA Swimming. The first thing I did was make these time trials a separate sanction because I did not want the time trials to conflict with the Championship swim times, individual and team high points since there are awards given out for those. The time trials were going to take place during the morning and afternoon break on the second day of the meet. The order of events for the time trial was listed in the meet flyer as a separate sanction and all swimmers would know the order of events and would be called up to swim in that order. Officials were at there stations and ready to go. Electronic timing scoreboard was ready and manual timers were ready as back up. We had only 5 swimmers swim in these trials out of over 300 swimmers that were at the meet. In one of the swims, Lois Nochman swimming in the 80-84 age group broke her own USMS National Record in the 100 Yard Fly. We filled out all of the necessary paper work for the USMS Record and the pool was measured before and after each session for the Championship meet so that was going to be done anyway. When I turned in the Application for a USMS Record there was some questions about this but basically the time was accepted for the record and the other swims were accepted from the time trials. What I learned is that there are differences from how USA Swimming does time trials and how USMS does them. USA requires a separate sanction and USMS does not. Both organizations require the schedule of events to be spelled out in the meet flyer and followed accordingly during the meet. The results should spell out what swims were from time trials and what were from the meet. There is a way in Hytec Meet Manager to do this and I have seen it in results from USA meets but not from USMS meets. Because we don't require a separate sanction, the swimmer can only swim a maximum of 5 events a day including the time trial swims. As in turned out we were lucky because the swimmers that swam the trials did not go over that limit and would have been disqualified in there 6th event if they had and this could have effected the swimmer in the individual high point and team high point awards. This is also where I learned that time trials swims are only good for short course yard meets when they are advertised in the meet flyer and part of the sanction. They are not permitted for short course meter and long course meter meets per USMS and FINA rules. If the requirements for both USA and USMS are made, then times from these swims should count for both organizations and masters swimmers swimming in USA meets will get credit for the swims for USMS for both top ten and records. As was said before FINA will not count any times from time trials per there rules.

Thanks Frank. Wow, that's interesting. Seems like I've heard quite a lot, including from Jeff, that if the meet director/referee announces the time trial at the beginning of the day and opens it to all, the time counts. This "announcment" point was also one of the reasons my time was initially disallowed. Perhaps more meet directors should consider putting a time trial slot on the order of events for their meet, if they think it won't run too long. (Rutgers was done around 1:00 or so.) USS swimming seems far ahead of us in some respects. This would certainly help people who have order of event issues. Paul, there were quite a few masters swimmers in the dual sanctioned yards meet I swam in in NC. First time I had ever seen that, really. Fortress: I was involved in sanctioning a time trial during the 2007 Michigan Masters State Championship. I remember at first I was skeptical about this because of what was said back in 2001 on these forums about time trials. But the organization running the meet ran time trials in USA meets and wanted to offer them for masters. As a guide to set this up, I used the 2007 USA Swimming Rule book because reference to this in the USMS Rule book was a little vague plus I know most of the time we use the rules and procedures of USA Swimming. The first thing I did was make these time trials a separate sanction because I did not want the time trials to conflict with the Championship swim times, individual and team high points since there are awards given out for those. The time trials were going to take place during the morning and afternoon break on the second day of the meet. The order of events for the time trial was listed in the meet flyer as a separate sanction and all swimmers would know the order of events and would be called up to swim in that order. Officials were at there stations and ready to go. Electronic timing scoreboard was ready and manual timers were ready as back up. We had only 5 swimmers swim in these trials out of over 300 swimmers that were at the meet. In one of the swims, Lois Nochman swimming in the 80-84 age group broke her own USMS National Record in the 100 Yard Fly. We filled out all of the necessary paper work for the USMS Record and the pool was measured before and after each session for the Championship meet so that was going to be done anyway. When I turned in the Application for a USMS Record there was some questions about this but basically the time was accepted for the record and the other swims were accepted from the time trials. What I learned is that there are differences from how USA Swimming does time trials and how USMS does them. USA requires a separate sanction and USMS does not. Both organizations require the schedule of events to be spelled out in the meet flyer and followed accordingly during the meet. The results should spell out what swims were from time trials and what were from the meet. There is a way in Hytec Meet Manager to do this and I have seen it in results from USA meets but not from USMS meets. Because we don't require a separate sanction, the swimmer can only swim a maximum of 5 events a day including the time trial swims. As in turned out we were lucky because the swimmers that swam the trials did not go over that limit and would have been disqualified in there 6th event if they had and this could have effected the swimmer in the individual high point and team high point awards. This is also where I learned that time trials swims are only good for short course yard meets when they are advertised in the meet flyer and part of the sanction. They are not permitted for short course meter and long course meter meets per USMS and FINA rules. If the requirements for both USA and USMS are made, then times from these swims should count for both organizations and masters swimmers swimming in USA meets will get credit for the swims for USMS for both top ten and records. As was said before FINA will not count any times from time trials per there rules.