2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 06:18:43 GMT

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Betsy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:09:37 GMT

I usually process 2-3 records each year at my meet. If the electronic timing is working, you just have to submit the CTS printouts and heat sheet to show heat and lane. Fortunately, I have never had to use watch times. It would be hard to go back after the meet and figure who was timing which lane. One year a swimmer broke a record but the pad did not register. We figured the adjusted time from the buttons and submitted it. Walt used the printouts and corrected the way we had adjusted the time. Good service!

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Chris Stevenson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:45:02 GMT

One interesting note... and I need to check the USA Swimming rulebook more closely for a reference. In all my workings with nationally-certified USA Swimming admin refs, they repeatedly pointed out that when using touchpads (i.e., automatic primary system), in the event of a pad malfunction, a corrected time (i.e., adjusted/calculated button, etc.) is then considered an automatic time. I.e., if you're running a meet with touchpads, with one backup timer per lane, and have a pad malfunction on a finish... if you make the appropriate correction to the single button time, then that corrected/adjusted time is considered an automatic time for the purposes of the rules, records, etc. Yes. I had a conversation with Charlie Cockrell (Officials chair) about this very issue. He said that 3 timers are only needed if they are the *primary* timing system. So I wondered why at meets that have 2 timers/lane, there are often instructions that you should request a third timer if you are going for a record? I forgot to ask Charlie this, but I think the reason is that sometimes the pad simply fails to register. Or possibly a swimmer misses the pad. If there is NO time, then an adjustment is not possible and you need the 3 timers.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:26:37 GMT

The Race History is not difficult to forge. It's just a printout. Anything along the way is not hard to forge. Heck, you can fake out a touchpad with a button trivially if you want to. This is why there are humans involved. We trust Walt to make sure the supporting paperwork is appropriate. If I send in something that doesn't make sense, he'll ask, and we'll explain. Heck, in a non-record situation, I had a swimmer appeal to the USMS Officials Committee about my decision to invalidate a touchpad time in an event and use the (adjusted) button, for a _competitor_. The result of my invalidating the touchpad time for the competitor was that the competitor won race by a few hundredths. (The pad times said swimmer A beat swimmer B by a few tenths. The buttons said that swimmer B won. The watches said that swimmer B won. The place judge said that swimmer B won. Based on that, we declared a pad malfunction for swimmer B, and used an adjusted button, which had swimmer B win. Swimmer A appealed.) The end result is that the paperwork needs to all tell a consistent story. If there's an anomaly, we dig deeper. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

jroddin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:48:37 GMT

This of course also just gets to... at some point, we do need to trust that everyone is honest. If anyone really wanted to, it would be trivial to forge a timing system printout for any time that I wanted to for any swimmer that you wanted to. -Rick The record app doesn't specify which printout is actually required for the record. However, in my dealings with Walt it is the "Race History" that is required, not the "Race Summary." I am using CTS terminology and don't know what Omega, Daktronics, etc. may use. The Race Summary can be printed out later in the meet after adjustments have been made. The Race History comes off the press real time and shows all of the original pad hits and can't be printed later. Therefore, for honesty purposes the Race History is the one that can't be changed (unless somebody uses white-out, etc. to make a change or if they can recreate the sheet using Word using the same fonts, etc.). The problem is if you 100% require the Race History for the record app, you are SOL if the printer happens to jam during that heat because you cannot recreate it later - unless Walt will accept a Race Summary with an honest mea culpa. Why are all these details so critical? Here's my best explanation why you can't just turn in meet results signed by the ref from a meet that used aumatic timing: you need a copy of the heat sheet to place the swimmer in a specific heat/lane. You then use the Race History to show what that heat/lane actually did. Meet Results, as we all know, sometimes contain errors with the wrong swimmer, NS, etc. But pairing the heat sheet with the Race History tells the story. Jeff

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:34:07 GMT

The timing system not starting is easy to deal with, as long as you can start the timing system late. That's a heat malfunction, and the heat malfunction correction rules go into play. Even if you only have one timer/button per lane, you have, in effect, as many timers and you have lanes to correct. If you have 8 lanes, then for each lane, you get a pad-to-button differential, and then average that differential across all lanes, and that tells you exactly how late the timer started, and thus how much time to add to each pad time to correct. That is very accurate, given that you're introducing 8 or 16 or 24 humans into the formula. In the case of a pad malfunction, and you have a bad human timer... of course more timers will help. In my experience working with USA Swimming National Admin Referees, the general practice is that you look to find as much agreement with your data that you can, while keeping in mind that if you have human timers pushing buttons and watches, then you may have corresponding pairs of good or bad data. For example, you may have a timer who is slow on the finish, and the pad _and_ button is always slow. However, they may also be slow at the start with the stopwatch, so that may "correct itself" on both ends of the swim. You also have order of finish that can help. If you have watch or button data that matches, or does not match, the order of finish, that can help piece together the data. In the end, it becomes a judgment call in terms of what data is valid. The standard of course is 0.30 second difference between a pad and button to signal a problem... but it is the judgment of the Timing Judge (under the direction of the Referee) to determine if it was the pad that was bad, or the button that was bad, or both, based on the available data. But certainly... it is a dream having three human timers per lane if you can get it. (Although sometimes... I'd take one good competent timer, over three bad human timers.) In the very very rare case that I have no good data to arrive at a time, I've got no choice but to manually insert the slowest possible time that fits the available data. For example, I know you finished about 3 seconds ahead of the swimmer in lane 6, but don't know by how much, I might give you a time that is 1.00 seconds faster than lane 6, knowing it couldn't be slower than that.. but I can't know that it was any faster. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:06:11 GMT

One interesting note... and I need to check the USA Swimming rulebook more closely for a reference. In all my workings with nationally-certified USA Swimming admin refs, they repeatedly pointed out that when using touchpads (i.e., automatic primary system), in the event of a pad malfunction, a corrected time (i.e., adjusted/calculated button, etc.) is then considered an automatic time. I.e., if you're running a meet with touchpads, with one backup timer per lane, and have a pad malfunction on a finish... if you make the appropriate correction to the single button time, then that corrected/adjusted time is considered an automatic time for the purposes of the rules, records, etc. I.e., if you have a pad malfunction, and correctly adjust a button time following the procedures, even with just a single button, then that should be sufficient for a record. I don't think that's ever happened in our meet (needing to use an adjusted button for a record). However, based on my use of the record application form... if that happened, we likely wouldn't have the signature of the timer available. (We wouldn't put 2 and 2 together to even know it was a record until later in most cases.) This of course also just gets to... at some point, we do need to trust that everyone is honest. If anyone really wanted to, it would be trivial to forge a timing system printout for any time that I wanted to for any swimmer that you wanted to. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

jroddin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:54:44 GMT

What if for some reason the starting system doesn't activate in a heat with a potential record? Would that not be a good case for having the third backup timer? Or, let's say your timing system only has 2 buttons per lane and the swimmer misses the pad and the two button times are far apart - so you need to rule one of the button times out. The watch times, presumably, tell the story as to which button time is good and which is bad. Let's say you had a third watch on the lane. If the one person with the bad button time was also off with the watch, at least you have that middle watch time to use. Or do you then use the one button time and apply a horizontal or vertical correction to come up with a pad time? If the latter is the case where you are permitted to use just one button time than it is even rarer to need the 3 watches (except to give the timing judge some peace of mind that the one button time is legit). My head hurts thinking about this...

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:33:44 GMT

Thought it might have been a brainfart. :-) I think the reason people ask for 3 timers is mostly not knowing. The USA Swimming, USMS, and NCAA rulebooks are a bit vague in the areas of timers required for records, and what you do when a pad malfunctions. My recollection is that the concept that you can correct a pad malfunction with a single button is largely based on established practice and interpretation, and is not firmly or clearly written in any of the rulebooks. Nobody wants to screw it up, so everyone over-prepares. (Which isn't a terrible thing... three buttons are better than 2, which are better than 1.) The terrible problem arises when you have one human timer, and the touchpad fails, and it happens to be the one race that the timer was asleep and missed the finish as well. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Chris Stevenson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:04:11 GMT

Touchpads with manual watches as backups. These are the instructions on the record form: "Attach the printout showing event number, heat number, splits, backup from the electronic timing system and/or time card with the signatures of all three timers." I interpreted the "and" as saying that I needed to submit both the backup from the electronic timing system, AND the time card with the signatures of all three timers. Perhaps Chris can clarify. I recall frantically running around at the end of one meet, trying to find the timers for a certain lane after we realized that a record had been set. I had interpreted it that way too, but I have heard from very many experienced hands who always do as Rick does (without the signatures) so clearly Walt accepts them that way. I believe the signatures are only required if buttons/watches are the primary system or if the touchpad completely fails (eg the person misses the pad) and the watches must be used. Given the fact that automatic timing from splits can be used for records -- there ARE no timers in that case, since until this past Convention manual timing for splits was not allowed -- I don't see how timer signatures can be a requirement if the touchpad time is deemed valiid. I'll ask Walt to be sure; we need to make another change in the record application form anyway for the Rule Book. (The form does not make it clear that *copies* of the birth certificate or passport are sufficient for proof of age.) Maybe we can re-word this part. On a related manner, I'm not looking forward to trying to re-word the split request form in light of the passage of R48. Now we have the following: 1. Split requests must be submitted ahead of time for backstroke and relay leadoffs. 2. Split requests must be submitted by the end of the meet in other cases when automatic timing is the primary system. 3. When timers/buttons are used as the primary system, all split requests must be submitted before the swim. (This should be obvious, but...!) 4. The same primary timing system shall be used for splits as is used for the completed swims. (In other words, if touchpads are available and functioning, a swimmer cannot request a hand-timed split.)

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Chris Stevenson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 04:10:35 GMT

If the pad misses at the finish (i.e., single lane malfunction), you can make an appropriate correction using either a single button, or a single watch, if that's all you have. Having more than one human helps to make it more reliable, but a single button backup is sufficient. Yes, I realized my brainfart soon after I posted but couldn't get back here to change it. So then I guess don't know why at some meets (with automatic timing as the primary system) they have you request a 3rd timer if you anticipate breaking a record.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:44:28 GMT

If there is NO time, then an adjustment is not possible and you need the 3 timers. If the pad misses at the finish (i.e., single lane malfunction), you can make an appropriate correction using either a single button, or a single watch, if that's all you have. Having more than one human helps to make it more reliable, but a single button backup is sufficient. (Otherwise, every meet would always need 3 human timers per lane, even if you had touchpads, just in case, and for sure that doesn't happen.) -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:47:15 GMT

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:22:12 GMT

I have only processed a few record applications, but aren't you supposed to have the timers sign the timing sheets when there is a record? How do you handle that - do you have the timers all sign every timer sheet, just in case?

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:24:02 GMT

You're right, I never noticed that wording. In years of submitting record applications, I have never submitted a timer signatures. It seems this wording on the record application could be clarified either way. :-) In our championship meets anyways, we only have two human timers per lane, which is sufficient when using touchpads. So I could never get three timer signatures anyways. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:44:03 GMT

Was this stopwatch or touchpad timing? With automatic/touchpad timing, only the signature of the referee is required, along with printouts from the timing system, etc. I don't recall the policy for stopwatch only timing. -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:14:26 GMT

To add... I don't believe there is anything that requires you to complete record forms the same day, beyond convenience. At our big meets, I do record applications after the meet, and FedEx the paperwork to our referee to sign, then get them back, make copies, and send in. Depending on what access you have to your referee after the meet, that is an option. If you are new to running meets... One thing to also do is keep any notes that are written by key people. For example, our referee, place judge, timing operator, etc. all have heat sheets that are marked up with order of finish, empty lanes, etc. Encourage those people to also note anything unusual on their heat sheets. Then be sure someone collects those heat sheets and gets them into your files. For example, if we have an 800 swimmer go out hard for a 100 split, typically one or more people will mark something about it in their heat sheet. So when digging through the paperwork later, you can get confirmation that a "fast" split for that lane "makes sense". -Rick

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Chris Stevenson — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:35:14 GMT

At the end of the meet, I plan to have the referee authorize the split times from the printouts. Then, I can deal with the paperwork the next day. Does that sound like it will work? It should work, as long as you have access to the raw data for the heat of the split requests. To truly verify a split time when there is some question about it (since you don't have buttons or manual watches to compare again) it is sometimes necessary to compare the splits to those of the rest of the heat. For example, you can tell if a touchpad was incorrectly triggered if (say) lane 5 is ahead of lane 6 and widening the lead...and suddenly there is an odd outcome because s/he missed the pad or it was triggered by someone else (eg someone filling up his goggles). I noticed at PR that there were LOTS of weird split results on some events. I don't envy Walt Reid having to go through those. Of course, sometimes someone enters an event like 800 free but really wants a 100 time. That person may blast the first 100 and then take a LONG time to do the next 50-100 before resuming at cruise speed. On the printout the resulting splits might look a little wacky. I would think a meet referee would want to make note of this when it happens. (Allowing split requests after the fact makes this practice a little complicated.)

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Betsy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:10:48 GMT

At the meet I host Nov 6 in Virginia Beach, I am going to have a Sign-Up sheet at the Registration/Check-in desk for split requests. I am going to try to alert swimmers that they can request splits if there is a chance that the split time might make top10. I'll have to talk to the referee about what information he/she needs during the meet. At the end of the meet, I plan to have the referee authorize the split times from the printouts. Then, I can deal with the paperwork the next day. Does that sound like it will work? Records are another matter - we have to have the referee sign the forms that day. Because we offer the distance relays for SCM, we hope to have several new relay records. And there are a few individuals, Chris Stevenson included, who may get individual records.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:56:44 GMT

So what was the decision (if any) on the full body tech suits for SCY only? Not happening

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:11:44 GMT

So what was the decision (if any) on the full body tech suits for SCY only? :worms::worms::worms::worms::worms::worms::worms::worms::worms:

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

Former Member — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:58:39 GMT

This video, YouTube - We are U.S. Masters Swimming, was shown at the aquatic awards banquet on Saturday night. Was this video produced specifically for the awards banquet? It seemed to be 96% about competition.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

swimshark — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:59:09 GMT

Tby request that every one of my splits be considered as an official time". I would encourage all swimmers going to any meet to bury the Meet Director and Meet Referee with official requests for splits during the meet for every swim that they participate in. As it is... so at the end of the meet, we consider the results official. Guess what... if I discover a major tabulation error in the results 30 days later... I'm going to amend the results and make the correction. Sorry, your time of 9:35.65 in the 1650 freestyle was a technical error, and you do not get the world record just because we didn't notice it before the end of the meet. -Rick So you want to make it even harder to find people willing to volunteer to be meet directors and officials? At some meets, finding those to do the jobs is hard enough. Adding more work on them just because you aren't happy with a ruling isn't the solution.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

jroddin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:38:56 GMT

.. if I discover a major tabulation error in the results 30 days later... I'm going to amend the results and make the correction. Just make sure you are an official Timing Judge per the rulebook because the Timing Judge official (or Admin Ref) is who authorizes official times. Most Top Ten recorders are not officials. I imagine a loophole is the Meet Director later submits a correction to their official results due to an error (split request form that was lost and then found...). :bolt: You are obviously upset about this, but I think the point you are missing is the Top Ten Recorders are typically not in a position to certify a swim as an official time and the original Rule proposal tried to give the TTR the ability to do this.

RE: 2010 USMS Convention DALLAS TX

osterber — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:11:45 GMT

I believe someone also said that the meet results could not be official until all such split requests were received, meaning that meet results wouldn't be official until 30 days after the meet. I don't know the reasoning behind that statement; but by that point in the meeting it was clear that most of the Committee was against the proposal. The vote was unanimous to withdraw the proposal. Bottom line: it is much easier to determine if a split time is legit at the meet itself. This is frustrating, and is such a disservice to swimmers. The rule proposal that I was looking for was to _ALLOW_ for this to be possible, not _REQUIRE_ that it be possible. If should be up to ME as a meet director, in conjunction with my Meet Referee, to determine if I am willing to do the work to verify splits after the meet is over. Well... my guess is that from now on, we will just include blanket text in every meet entry form that says "I hereby request that every one of my splits be considered as an official time". I would encourage all swimmers going to any meet to bury the Meet Director and Meet Referee with official requests for splits during the meet for every swim that they participate in. As it is... so at the end of the meet, we consider the results official. Guess what... if I discover a major tabulation error in the results 30 days later... I'm going to amend the results and make the correction. Sorry, your time of 9:35.65 in the 1650 freestyle was a technical error, and you do not get the world record just because we didn't notice it before the end of the meet. -Rick