Rules on Pacing

It would be interesting to see someone swim a 1:05 pace, or whatever, in the warm up lane around the 5 other people doing lazy backstroke. LOL. LOL! Unless a pace swimmer is a "device," I'd say it's not against the letter but against the spirit of the law.

In other sports, rabbits/pacers are PAID $$$$ to do just this! I think in a pol area this would be a tough assignment & not work well.

Can't be. If that was, then they'd have to turn off the clocks during the swim too. I paced my 200 free the other day by looking at my splits while swimming the race :) It was certainly a device used to enhance pace in that instance. Does that make looking at it illegal? The clock is available to all competitors in the given race so you did not gain an unfair advantage.

The clock is available to all competitors in the given race so you did not gain an unfair advantage. Not near sighted swimmers.

Personally, totally in favor of pace help (even the pulse watch which is illegal while competing):applaud: About any rule against it ever heard . Though a judge might consider inappropriate conduct if is it “obvious the intention”. Have been DQ once for doing legs really slow at a competition (400 freestyle), was a protest:D

Can't be. If that was, then they'd have to turn off the clocks during the swim too. I paced my 200 free the other day by looking at my splits while swimming the race :) It was certainly a device used to enhance pace in that instance. Does that make looking at it illegal? I did the same thing during my 1650 last weekend...I didn't look at the clock all the time, but at certain points in the race I would glance at the clock, do a little math in my head, and pick up the pace (why would I choose to slow down the pace??) :)

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.

Also, let it be known that the pacer never finished his laps. He quit when she was done. Did you want the officials to DQ the person in the warm-up/warm-down lanes for not finishing the event that was going on in the competition lanes? Seems like a lot of whining over a non-issue.

Not near sighted swimmers. Nor people in a lane on the same wall as the time board :) There's some places in a pool that you just can't see it.

I. Third, if she did do it to get a top 10 time or something like that, do you really think that is fair? Also, let it be known that the pacer never finished his laps. He quit when she was done. Yes, it is fair. The she still had to do the swimming and get a time that is good enough for top ten. Why does it matter if he didn't finish? He wasn't going for a place, time, etc. Pacing happens all the time in track, so what makes swimming anything special compared to track?