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.:)
Folks,
These comments are about knowingly entering a slower (or even faster) time that you know you will swim for an event. And are directed more towards doing this in large meets such as Nationals or NE champs, etc. Local meets usually have so much variance normally per heat and so few heats in total that an intentionally false time will not have much affect on the timeline.
I'm sorry but asking a meet director, ref, governing body, your priest, the paperboy or your pet squirrel to enforce making sure swimmers enter with a realistic seed time is just nannyism. If everyone was as honest as possible there would be no need for enforcement. But there needs to be some attempt at realistic entry times. You can't compare a swim meet with multiple events and multiple heats to any other sporting event because a swim meet is one of the few places (track is another) that will have 10s to multiple 100s of individual heats. If a meet has 400 heats and each heat on average takes 10 seconds longer due to poor seeding (and one sandbagged entry for each event can skew every heat of the entire event) that's 4000 seconds or over an hour added to the timeline.
Yes, we know that training for meet X and then finding out you're in a sucky lane ain't fair. Well, if that's your lane because everyone seeded to the best of thier knowledge, then it's as fair as it's gonna get.
If you don't like a meet format, petition to get it changed, or don't go, or go and deal with it or run your own meet.
If you have logistical issues with a meet, petition the meed director for an exception, or alter your plans, or change your events, or don't go, or keep your plans and risk not swimming your event, or start running a meet that can support your logistical requirements.
It comes down to this, competing in any swim meet is a privledge not a right. No one is required to run meets and there is nothing in the Constitution about folks having opportunites to swim in meets. If we cannot be considerate to our fellow competitors by doing our best to enter a meet with as accurate a time as possible (note: AS POSSIBLE, if you have never swam that event, so be it, but maybe time trialing in practice?) for the circumstances (split requests should never be entered with a swimmer's typical time, pad it some to reflect the cool down and let the meet director know your intention when entereing, also having the ref announce your intention before the heat starts would be the polite thing to do), then why bother entering?
I used to be indifferent towards sandbagging in general (but still gave individuals a hard time about it) but as I have been involved in setting up and running meets, sandbagging sucks as it blows up timelines past projections.
Folks,
These comments are about knowingly entering a slower (or even faster) time that you know you will swim for an event. And are directed more towards doing this in large meets such as Nationals or NE champs, etc. Local meets usually have so much variance normally per heat and so few heats in total that an intentionally false time will not have much affect on the timeline.
I'm sorry but asking a meet director, ref, governing body, your priest, the paperboy or your pet squirrel to enforce making sure swimmers enter with a realistic seed time is just nannyism. If everyone was as honest as possible there would be no need for enforcement. But there needs to be some attempt at realistic entry times. You can't compare a swim meet with multiple events and multiple heats to any other sporting event because a swim meet is one of the few places (track is another) that will have 10s to multiple 100s of individual heats. If a meet has 400 heats and each heat on average takes 10 seconds longer due to poor seeding (and one sandbagged entry for each event can skew every heat of the entire event) that's 4000 seconds or over an hour added to the timeline.
Yes, we know that training for meet X and then finding out you're in a sucky lane ain't fair. Well, if that's your lane because everyone seeded to the best of thier knowledge, then it's as fair as it's gonna get.
If you don't like a meet format, petition to get it changed, or don't go, or go and deal with it or run your own meet.
If you have logistical issues with a meet, petition the meed director for an exception, or alter your plans, or change your events, or don't go, or keep your plans and risk not swimming your event, or start running a meet that can support your logistical requirements.
It comes down to this, competing in any swim meet is a privledge not a right. No one is required to run meets and there is nothing in the Constitution about folks having opportunites to swim in meets. If we cannot be considerate to our fellow competitors by doing our best to enter a meet with as accurate a time as possible (note: AS POSSIBLE, if you have never swam that event, so be it, but maybe time trialing in practice?) for the circumstances (split requests should never be entered with a swimmer's typical time, pad it some to reflect the cool down and let the meet director know your intention when entereing, also having the ref announce your intention before the heat starts would be the polite thing to do), then why bother entering?
I used to be indifferent towards sandbagging in general (but still gave individuals a hard time about it) but as I have been involved in setting up and running meets, sandbagging sucks as it blows up timelines past projections.
