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.:)
Kurt:
I feel your pain.
Aside from the timing and a bad cow-tipping memory from Auburn, a big reason for me NOT to go to summer Nationals is that Auburn is a pain to get to ... pretty much for everyone except those who live there.
Be happy that at least Paul Smith seems to have gotten the hang of swimming distance events fastest to slowest at his local meets. Maybe the other 3 guys who run meets in Arizona (attention: Simon Percy, Mark Rankin and Jim Stites) will catch on.
I promise to try to start swimming longer events at local meets so you're not so lonely. :bighug:
On sandbagging and entry times in general:
I try to follow a sort of golden rule for entering meets: enter the time I think I'm capable of going given all the life and training factors leading up to the meet.
I don't like sandbaggers, but I also don't like rose-colored glasses optimists who swim way slower than their times, primarily for a reason Chris gave: I like competition.
With that said, I don't like the idea of a meet director discussing how to adjust my times. If this concept catches on, the people who will be most penalized will be those who race the most because they have the greatest volume of data from which a random meet director can 'estimate' their 'proper' entry time.
It's amazing what running a meet/or being involved with running a meet can do to alter your perception of things like this!!
Please always enter an NT if the event is seeded slowest to fastest!
Aside from running fastest to slowest in the distance events we also found that if we can set up the course to allow for a "free" lane we can actually keep running heats around a swimmer that is entered with an extremely slow time (47 minute mile being the case in point)....you need a good Hy-Tek operator and always communicate with the swimmer!
Forts point is a good one as well...at this years state meet we ran separate heats for men and women and it went great and didn't add a significant amount of time to the timeline, so going forward we will do this for all of our meets (the exception might be a single male or female entered in an event than we would most likely merge...
With regard to a meet director discussing times with a swimmer who may be sandbagging, I will absolutely do it if its a blatant case that is impacting the meet experience for the people around them...so Dickson be warned!! :)
Kurt:
I feel your pain.
Aside from the timing and a bad cow-tipping memory from Auburn, a big reason for me NOT to go to summer Nationals is that Auburn is a pain to get to ... pretty much for everyone except those who live there.
Be happy that at least Paul Smith seems to have gotten the hang of swimming distance events fastest to slowest at his local meets. Maybe the other 3 guys who run meets in Arizona (attention: Simon Percy, Mark Rankin and Jim Stites) will catch on.
I promise to try to start swimming longer events at local meets so you're not so lonely. :bighug:
On sandbagging and entry times in general:
I try to follow a sort of golden rule for entering meets: enter the time I think I'm capable of going given all the life and training factors leading up to the meet.
I don't like sandbaggers, but I also don't like rose-colored glasses optimists who swim way slower than their times, primarily for a reason Chris gave: I like competition.
With that said, I don't like the idea of a meet director discussing how to adjust my times. If this concept catches on, the people who will be most penalized will be those who race the most because they have the greatest volume of data from which a random meet director can 'estimate' their 'proper' entry time.
It's amazing what running a meet/or being involved with running a meet can do to alter your perception of things like this!!
Please always enter an NT if the event is seeded slowest to fastest!
Aside from running fastest to slowest in the distance events we also found that if we can set up the course to allow for a "free" lane we can actually keep running heats around a swimmer that is entered with an extremely slow time (47 minute mile being the case in point)....you need a good Hy-Tek operator and always communicate with the swimmer!
Forts point is a good one as well...at this years state meet we ran separate heats for men and women and it went great and didn't add a significant amount of time to the timeline, so going forward we will do this for all of our meets (the exception might be a single male or female entered in an event than we would most likely merge...
With regard to a meet director discussing times with a swimmer who may be sandbagging, I will absolutely do it if its a blatant case that is impacting the meet experience for the people around them...so Dickson be warned!! :)
