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.:)
First off, I want to :cheerleader: Kurt for starting this fun thread. I think that, with the LCM season in its early days with most forumites in training but not yet competing in a lot of meets, all of our competitive juices are flowing into this one thread. It's great audience-engagement theater to watch and participate in.
But, because every thread needs a good hijack, I want to disagree with Jeff ... I agree meets should be seeded split gender whenever possible. ... because I think seeding all meets solely based upon time is the best way to minimize timeline and maximize competition. I love our local meets for the fact that we swim mixed ages and mixed genders. I can still remember the time I swam a 400 SCM IM at the Ron Johnson meet a few years back when I wasn't in sh*t-hot shape, but Susan Von der Lippe was in Lane 5. I can guarantee you that she made me much faster that day because there wasn't another guy entered in the meet who approached either of us. I'm sure Fort has that effect on many a man when seeded in a mixed gender race.
First off, I want to :cheerleader: Kurt for starting this fun thread. I think that, with the LCM season in its early days with most forumites in training but not yet competing in a lot of meets, all of our competitive juices are flowing into this one thread. It's great audience-engagement theater to watch and participate in.
But, because every thread needs a good hijack, I want to disagree with Jeff ... I agree meets should be seeded split gender whenever possible. ... because I think seeding all meets solely based upon time is the best way to minimize timeline and maximize competition. I love our local meets for the fact that we swim mixed ages and mixed genders. I can still remember the time I swam a 400 SCM IM at the Ron Johnson meet a few years back when I wasn't in sh*t-hot shape, but Susan Von der Lippe was in Lane 5. I can guarantee you that she made me much faster that day because there wasn't another guy entered in the meet who approached either of us. I'm sure Fort has that effect on many a man when seeded in a mixed gender race.
