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
:2cents: This is one of the weirdest threads I've ever read.
Why not just enter the time you think you'll swim. For those swimming 100m or less, you're hopefully planning to swim at max velocity +/- the whole race anyway, so who cares what's happening next to you.
For races involving some form of what I have heard distance swimmers refer to as "pacing", I could imagine that an idiot seeded next to you going much slower or faster than you would be frustrating. This would be solved if they entered a time approximating what they think they'll do in the race...
YMMV.
:2cents: This is one of the weirdest threads I've ever read.
Why not just enter the time you think you'll swim. For those swimming 100m or less, you're hopefully planning to swim at max velocity +/- the whole race anyway, so who cares what's happening next to you.
For races involving some form of what I have heard distance swimmers refer to as "pacing", I could imagine that an idiot seeded next to you going much slower or faster than you would be frustrating. This would be solved if they entered a time approximating what they think they'll do in the race...
YMMV.
