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.:)
For the events that are below a 400, do a timeline analysis of a random seed compared to circle seeding, throw in the actual seeding and timeline for good measure. I would love to see it published how many minutes could be saved.
I did this with the 2011 Auburn SCY meet because I'm curious about stuff like this. I started with the 1650 which is outside the parameters of your initial problem. But that's ok becasue I was educated in Alabama (which is slighly worse than being educated in Arizona) and ignoring problem parameters is something that should be expected of me. I did the 500 free and 50 free next and then realized that an entire meet was going to take a long time. I did heats by last name to simulate randomization.
For the 1650:
31 entrants, 4 heats, there were a couple no shows and scratches but those were weeded out. No real sandbaggers for this event.
Total swimming time: 1:49:09
Optimized heats: 1:47:26
Sandbagging waste: 1:43
"Randomized" heats: 2:05:38
Seeding efficiency: 16:29
For the 500:
70 Entrants, 9 Heats, there were a couple sandbaggers in this one but none that should have been in the final heat.
Total swimming time: 1:15:04
Optimized heats: 1:09:30
Sandbagging waste: 5:33
"Randomized" heats: 1:18:59
Seeding efficiency: 3:55
Bonus - there were a bunch of "no starts" in this event
Optimized heats (no NS): 1:02:41
NS Waste + Sandbag waste: 12:22
For the 50 Free
144 entrants, 18 heats, some deliberate sandbagging going on here but there were enough that most of the sandbaggers all had their own heat.
Total swimming time: 646s
Optimized heats: 597s
Sandbagging waste: 48s
"Randomized" heats: 883s
Seeding efficiency: 237s
Optimized heats (no NS): 564s
NS Waste + Sandbag waste: 81s
I imagine that with more people, sandbagging will have a bigger impact. It also appears that sandbagging and inaccurate seeds have a larger impact on longer events. It should be pretty obvious from this as to why we aren't seeded randomly.
If you want to see a real meet timewaster, take a look at this idiot: http://youtu.be/_AkjaVpw7do
The real lesson here is that if we make it easier on the nice people that put together the meets (by not sandbagging, using inaccurate seeds, or only signing up for events were are actually goign to swim), we all get to go socialize and drink beer sooner. :chug:
For the events that are below a 400, do a timeline analysis of a random seed compared to circle seeding, throw in the actual seeding and timeline for good measure. I would love to see it published how many minutes could be saved.
I did this with the 2011 Auburn SCY meet because I'm curious about stuff like this. I started with the 1650 which is outside the parameters of your initial problem. But that's ok becasue I was educated in Alabama (which is slighly worse than being educated in Arizona) and ignoring problem parameters is something that should be expected of me. I did the 500 free and 50 free next and then realized that an entire meet was going to take a long time. I did heats by last name to simulate randomization.
For the 1650:
31 entrants, 4 heats, there were a couple no shows and scratches but those were weeded out. No real sandbaggers for this event.
Total swimming time: 1:49:09
Optimized heats: 1:47:26
Sandbagging waste: 1:43
"Randomized" heats: 2:05:38
Seeding efficiency: 16:29
For the 500:
70 Entrants, 9 Heats, there were a couple sandbaggers in this one but none that should have been in the final heat.
Total swimming time: 1:15:04
Optimized heats: 1:09:30
Sandbagging waste: 5:33
"Randomized" heats: 1:18:59
Seeding efficiency: 3:55
Bonus - there were a bunch of "no starts" in this event
Optimized heats (no NS): 1:02:41
NS Waste + Sandbag waste: 12:22
For the 50 Free
144 entrants, 18 heats, some deliberate sandbagging going on here but there were enough that most of the sandbaggers all had their own heat.
Total swimming time: 646s
Optimized heats: 597s
Sandbagging waste: 48s
"Randomized" heats: 883s
Seeding efficiency: 237s
Optimized heats (no NS): 564s
NS Waste + Sandbag waste: 81s
I imagine that with more people, sandbagging will have a bigger impact. It also appears that sandbagging and inaccurate seeds have a larger impact on longer events. It should be pretty obvious from this as to why we aren't seeded randomly.
If you want to see a real meet timewaster, take a look at this idiot: http://youtu.be/_AkjaVpw7do
The real lesson here is that if we make it easier on the nice people that put together the meets (by not sandbagging, using inaccurate seeds, or only signing up for events were are actually goign to swim), we all get to go socialize and drink beer sooner. :chug:
