Does anyone know if there are any rules on pacing? I tried to find information on it but couldn't. The question was raised at our meet yesturday when one of the swimmers had someone swim next to her just to pace her on her 500. Is this legal?
The rules on seeding races are very specific:
http://www.usms.org/rules/
Even if you put in the exact same seed time as someone else, you may not end up anywhere near each other or even in the same heat. There's usually no way to predict what lane you're going to be in unless you know everyone else's seed times.
To depend on a pacer would just be silly unless you made the decision to do so right before the race when you noticed that a pace swimmer, who is also a friend, is in an adjacent lane. In that case, it would probably be no different than any other race, because everyone has already submitted legit-enough times.
I suppose you could plan to pace in a postal meet or something, but that's not really messing with a lot of other swimmers in a meet situation, and the stakes are really low.
The rules on seeding races are very specific:
http://www.usms.org/rules/
Even if you put in the exact same seed time as someone else, you may not end up anywhere near each other or even in the same heat. There's usually no way to predict what lane you're going to be in unless you know everyone else's seed times.
To depend on a pacer would just be silly unless you made the decision to do so right before the race when you noticed that a pace swimmer, who is also a friend, is in an adjacent lane. In that case, it would probably be no different than any other race, because everyone has already submitted legit-enough times.
I suppose you could plan to pace in a postal meet or something, but that's not really messing with a lot of other swimmers in a meet situation, and the stakes are really low.
