I've seen a few vidoes of meets on youtube, or links posted here.
I've started noticing that there are rarely turning officials and the timers do nothing but stop the back up time at the finish.
how do you judge if something touched the wall on their freestyle turn, or two hand touch in *** and fly, or that they had their arm in motion on the backstroke rollover turn? or even how do you see if the underwater pullout in *** was according to the rules?
my other thought was, if someone breaks a record is it fair that no one was their to control every aspect of the race.
I've yet to be in a meet in sweden for masters or for the teens or even for the 7-11 kids that was not filled with a trained turning official at each end of each lane. who watch both technic and the turn from the flag to the flag.
we have a 7 lane pool and we have 14 turn officials, two lane officials walking up and down the pool, a back up timer official and a starter. when we have bigger meets we even have to have a turning official leader one for each end of the pool so the lane officials do not have to communicate with the turning judges and can watch more of the swimming.
recently we've started using walkie talkies so the starter can write up dq slips to save time for the lane officials and turning judges.
My experience is similar to Paul's. At meets with younger children you often see 1 S & T official for 4 lanes. As the kids get older/meets get more competitive the number of officials increases. I think this is because many parents don't get certified until their kids hit the 10+ age group, which leaves the shrimpy meets often understaffed. Ironically, the younger age group meets are the most helpful for learning S & T cause you will see stuff you didn't think was humanly possible.
My experience is similar to Paul's. At meets with younger children you often see 1 S & T official for 4 lanes. As the kids get older/meets get more competitive the number of officials increases. I think this is because many parents don't get certified until their kids hit the 10+ age group, which leaves the shrimpy meets often understaffed. Ironically, the younger age group meets are the most helpful for learning S & T cause you will see stuff you didn't think was humanly possible.
