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
Wookie - You keep bringing up the same comment about this being an independent sport. I think we can all agree if Kurt swam in the first heat with full disclosure to all, there would be little to no harm done. And his reasoning for doing so would be acceptable to all in the heat. And people would agree with you that swimming is an individual sport.
However, what if we took every compelling story into account and seeded everybody per their special needs (can't swim in an end lane, can't swim in a shallow lane, can't swim next to a man, can't swim in a lane where there are shadows, etc.) and the timeline took an extra hour (easy to do) each day at Nationals. That's where your theory about this only being an individual sport goes awry. Stay in practice and/or swim on your own if you don't want your actions to affect others. But if you are going to compete, then deal with the consequences that your submitted time (seed time) does in fact affect the running of the meet as well as those around you whether you like it or not. If everybody thought of only themselves, we wouldn't have a very well organized Nationals.
If you open the "exceptions" floodgate for one, how are you going to tell the next swimmer who has an even more compelling story why he/she can't get special treatment? Especially when they say, "but you let that one guy swim in the first heat of the 400..."
I will keep this in mind next year at the albatross meet when I do a reverse sandbag to warm-down from an event that is scheduled to close to another favorite event.
Wookie - You keep bringing up the same comment about this being an independent sport. I think we can all agree if Kurt swam in the first heat with full disclosure to all, there would be little to no harm done. And his reasoning for doing so would be acceptable to all in the heat. And people would agree with you that swimming is an individual sport.
However, what if we took every compelling story into account and seeded everybody per their special needs (can't swim in an end lane, can't swim in a shallow lane, can't swim next to a man, can't swim in a lane where there are shadows, etc.) and the timeline took an extra hour (easy to do) each day at Nationals. That's where your theory about this only being an individual sport goes awry. Stay in practice and/or swim on your own if you don't want your actions to affect others. But if you are going to compete, then deal with the consequences that your submitted time (seed time) does in fact affect the running of the meet as well as those around you whether you like it or not. If everybody thought of only themselves, we wouldn't have a very well organized Nationals.
If you open the "exceptions" floodgate for one, how are you going to tell the next swimmer who has an even more compelling story why he/she can't get special treatment? Especially when they say, "but you let that one guy swim in the first heat of the 400..."
I will keep this in mind next year at the albatross meet when I do a reverse sandbag to warm-down from an event that is scheduled to close to another favorite event.
