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.:)
My last USA-S meet was the same way. The kids (and myself) were all entered with their best times, (which happened to be from a whole year ago). Most of these kids are growing stronger and developing a lot between ages 14-18 and tend to blow their times out of the water. My experience was different. As the first LCM meet for lots of these kids, I generally found that the 15/16 year old boys were often (but not always) cranking ahead of their times, whereas the 17+ guys were often (but not always) well slower. It was a crapshoot ... almost as much as the crapshoot that we see in Masters' meets. On top of this, since this meet required qualifying times and some kids had those from yards and the yards times are seeded with the slowest meters times, you had blowouts in the early heats. I never once heard a kid (or a parent or a coach) complain about lopsided heats, people getting blown out in the early heats or timeline shenanigans. And this was with some actual, physical heat winner prizes on the line (e.g., cacti!).
My last USA-S meet was the same way. The kids (and myself) were all entered with their best times, (which happened to be from a whole year ago). Most of these kids are growing stronger and developing a lot between ages 14-18 and tend to blow their times out of the water. My experience was different. As the first LCM meet for lots of these kids, I generally found that the 15/16 year old boys were often (but not always) cranking ahead of their times, whereas the 17+ guys were often (but not always) well slower. It was a crapshoot ... almost as much as the crapshoot that we see in Masters' meets. On top of this, since this meet required qualifying times and some kids had those from yards and the yards times are seeded with the slowest meters times, you had blowouts in the early heats. I never once heard a kid (or a parent or a coach) complain about lopsided heats, people getting blown out in the early heats or timeline shenanigans. And this was with some actual, physical heat winner prizes on the line (e.g., cacti!).
