The anti-sandbag law:
"if a swimmer enters an event with a time significantly slower or faster than that swimmer's recorded time in the past two years, the meet director may, after a discussion with the swimmer, change the seeded time to a realistic time" (104.5.5.A(10)).
Concerning my Auburn nationals entry, I confess, when faced with a 7 hour 2 stop flight and 3:45 nonstop at an earlier time, I did what any warm-blooded middle-aged American swimmer with low self-esteem would do--sandbag my entry so I could catch the earlier flight, thus diminishing the possible time spent sitting next to a 400 pound Alabama slammer with sleep apnea wearing nothing but overalls and body odor. Of course, I was caught in my bold fabrication and my time was "fixed."
USMS seems to have an identity problem. Are we hard core with rigid qualifying times? It would seem not as 2 of my not-so-speedy family members were allowed to swim four events last year in Puerto Rico. If we are not hard core, why does anybody care that I sandbag? More to the point, why can one person enter a crappy time and another cannot? Just wondering.:)
Parents
Former Member
A funny thing happens to me when I go to mid-season meets and race agains the kids. I don't know if this is a rule or common practice, but the kids always seem to be entered in their absolute best times from SWIMS regardless of what meet they're swimming in. Early season and mid-season, these guys are all over the map in their performance relative to their entry times.
Depends on the meet, but some of our local meets just require a time in SWIMS, others require the fastest time in SWIMS. Sounds like yours consistently require fastest times from SWIMS.
The distance events would have more spread than the sprints, so it would probably be more noticeable to you. But outside of nationals, is there a USMS meet where you feel like you see more competition than a local USA-S meet?
A funny thing happens to me when I go to mid-season meets and race agains the kids. I don't know if this is a rule or common practice, but the kids always seem to be entered in their absolute best times from SWIMS regardless of what meet they're swimming in. Early season and mid-season, these guys are all over the map in their performance relative to their entry times.
Depends on the meet, but some of our local meets just require a time in SWIMS, others require the fastest time in SWIMS. Sounds like yours consistently require fastest times from SWIMS.
The distance events would have more spread than the sprints, so it would probably be more noticeable to you. But outside of nationals, is there a USMS meet where you feel like you see more competition than a local USA-S meet?
