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 want to understand the perspective of the "it's unsportsmanlike" crowd on a situation like this:
Let's say you're the fast seed in a circle-seeded prelims-finals event.
You're fairly studly, have good control of your pace and the field of competitors isn't strong enough to threaten your ability to make it back to the Top 8.
You're getting on the blocks to swim, you've seen all the other times and you feel like swimming not smack in the middle of the pool in finals ... for whatever reason.
You swim a time that lands you in lane 1 or 8 for the finals.
Say, you're Nathan Adrian at NCAAs this year in the 100 free.
You promptly come back in the evening, crush the swim from the start, get clear water and win the event ... exactly what everyone expected, but well faster than your 'seed' time for the finals.
Courting the ire of JimRude for besmirching the good name of a great Golden Bear, I ask, was that unsportsmanlike? Unethical? Or just great competitive strategy?
If you are perfectly comfortable with that and think that's jiggy with your ideals of what's sportsmanlike and what's not, how, except by a matter of degrees, is it different when Kurt enters a slower time going into the meet? We all know that Kurt's likely to swim fast (e.g., just as the entire field at NCAAs knew that Adrian would be fast in the evening). And, just like Adrian, Kurt will deftly avoid racing head-to-head with the guys who will place near him when the bubbles all settle and the live results are updated.
I can live with someone believing that sandbagging is unsportsmanlike (I don't), but you gotta define "by how much" and then consistently implement it. Take the speed limit as an example. We all know the cops give us a margin of error (it's roughly 10mph here in Arizona) before you're really considered to be speeding. We all live with that. Define the ethical/sportsmanlike range of sandbagging mathematically and then we can all move forward on safe moral ground.
I want to understand the perspective of the "it's unsportsmanlike" crowd on a situation like this:
Let's say you're the fast seed in a circle-seeded prelims-finals event.
You're fairly studly, have good control of your pace and the field of competitors isn't strong enough to threaten your ability to make it back to the Top 8.
You're getting on the blocks to swim, you've seen all the other times and you feel like swimming not smack in the middle of the pool in finals ... for whatever reason.
You swim a time that lands you in lane 1 or 8 for the finals.
Say, you're Nathan Adrian at NCAAs this year in the 100 free.
You promptly come back in the evening, crush the swim from the start, get clear water and win the event ... exactly what everyone expected, but well faster than your 'seed' time for the finals.
Courting the ire of JimRude for besmirching the good name of a great Golden Bear, I ask, was that unsportsmanlike? Unethical? Or just great competitive strategy?
If you are perfectly comfortable with that and think that's jiggy with your ideals of what's sportsmanlike and what's not, how, except by a matter of degrees, is it different when Kurt enters a slower time going into the meet? We all know that Kurt's likely to swim fast (e.g., just as the entire field at NCAAs knew that Adrian would be fast in the evening). And, just like Adrian, Kurt will deftly avoid racing head-to-head with the guys who will place near him when the bubbles all settle and the live results are updated.
I can live with someone believing that sandbagging is unsportsmanlike (I don't), but you gotta define "by how much" and then consistently implement it. Take the speed limit as an example. We all know the cops give us a margin of error (it's roughly 10mph here in Arizona) before you're really considered to be speeding. We all live with that. Define the ethical/sportsmanlike range of sandbagging mathematically and then we can all move forward on safe moral ground.
