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.:)
I do think that legal split requests are in the same ethical limbo land as sandbagging.
Example: a person enters, say, 4 minutes for the 200 fly, swims the first 50 in 24 seconds and the next 3 x 50 in 1:12 each.
Chances are that the other people in that heat are going to be elderly, or new swimmers, or relatively slow for a variety of reasons.
Again, if you tell the people in the lane what you are up to, it shouldn't be a big problem, though I can definitely see swamping some of the elderly with your wake off the first turn.
You don't see split requests in international non-masters swimming (other than relay lead offs) because of the need to qualify to make it to the finals. I think that masters, because we don't have qualifying heats, allows this, but to be honest, I am ambivalent about split requests in general because they give all out sprinters an advantage over competitors who swim a wider range of events.
Why should sprinters get 3 or more chances to do a best 50 time per meet, but those hoping to do well in sprints and longer distances can't really get as many chances (without ruining their longer distance chances)?
All sorts of ethical conundrums here, and I can see why you, as a sprinting purist, would feel defensive about any questions of unfairness, but that doesn't entirely eliminate such questions.
I do think that legal split requests are in the same ethical limbo land as sandbagging.
Example: a person enters, say, 4 minutes for the 200 fly, swims the first 50 in 24 seconds and the next 3 x 50 in 1:12 each.
Chances are that the other people in that heat are going to be elderly, or new swimmers, or relatively slow for a variety of reasons.
Again, if you tell the people in the lane what you are up to, it shouldn't be a big problem, though I can definitely see swamping some of the elderly with your wake off the first turn.
You don't see split requests in international non-masters swimming (other than relay lead offs) because of the need to qualify to make it to the finals. I think that masters, because we don't have qualifying heats, allows this, but to be honest, I am ambivalent about split requests in general because they give all out sprinters an advantage over competitors who swim a wider range of events.
Why should sprinters get 3 or more chances to do a best 50 time per meet, but those hoping to do well in sprints and longer distances can't really get as many chances (without ruining their longer distance chances)?
All sorts of ethical conundrums here, and I can see why you, as a sprinting purist, would feel defensive about any questions of unfairness, but that doesn't entirely eliminate such questions.
