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.:)
Female POV here...
It is very difficult to swim in lanes 1 or 6 next to a heat of guys. You boys create a lot more turbulence than the ladies. At a recent meet, I was in the 50 bk, in lane 1, swimming against all men. It was rough, I about drowned from the wake that was created. My time stunk, but I'm not blaming only the wake, others factors contributed to my bad swim, I would just like to compete in fairer waters. Hope that makes sense.
I'll admit that I've sandbagged, but only because of having back-to-back events at small meets. Needed to space out 3 events. Not sure how much it helped me, still died after my third swim. Yikes.
My only question is - is there a term for people who enter way too fast of a time at a meet like Nationals, get seeded in the "championship" heat of their age group and swim a ton slower in all their events? Myself or other swimmers in that age group could have benefited from being in that last heat?
I'm guessing it's impossible to make everyone happy, but I still love USMS soooo much.
Have a great weekend, swimmers!
Female POV here...
It is very difficult to swim in lanes 1 or 6 next to a heat of guys. You boys create a lot more turbulence than the ladies. At a recent meet, I was in the 50 bk, in lane 1, swimming against all men. It was rough, I about drowned from the wake that was created. My time stunk, but I'm not blaming only the wake, others factors contributed to my bad swim, I would just like to compete in fairer waters. Hope that makes sense.
I'll admit that I've sandbagged, but only because of having back-to-back events at small meets. Needed to space out 3 events. Not sure how much it helped me, still died after my third swim. Yikes.
My only question is - is there a term for people who enter way too fast of a time at a meet like Nationals, get seeded in the "championship" heat of their age group and swim a ton slower in all their events? Myself or other swimmers in that age group could have benefited from being in that last heat?
I'm guessing it's impossible to make everyone happy, but I still love USMS soooo much.
Have a great weekend, swimmers!
