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
Here is my question. If we are swimming in masters for ourselves, for our personal reasons(fun, health, friends, etc) why should it matter if someone sandbags an entry time in the first place?
Way to strike to the heart of the problem. If you look at it from a purely selfish perspective, you are driven to create the ideal environment for you at the expense of others selfish reasons. This would only work if all people had compatible selfish reasons. It is selfish for people to feel entitled to an ideal competitive seeding and selfish for people to sandbag for whatever reason.
On the flip side, approaching the problem from a completely selfless perspective would eliminate the desire to compete.
Here is my question. If we are swimming in masters for ourselves, for our personal reasons(fun, health, friends, etc) why should it matter if someone sandbags an entry time in the first place?
Way to strike to the heart of the problem. If you look at it from a purely selfish perspective, you are driven to create the ideal environment for you at the expense of others selfish reasons. This would only work if all people had compatible selfish reasons. It is selfish for people to feel entitled to an ideal competitive seeding and selfish for people to sandbag for whatever reason.
On the flip side, approaching the problem from a completely selfless perspective would eliminate the desire to compete.
