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 have heard the gender discrimination whine before, it didn't work then, it doesn't work now. The idea that just because you are a women you are placed in an outside lane is absurd.
There was another thread just started that asks if anyone had noticed it is harder to swim in the outside lanes.In all but the best pools the outside lane is slower,in some pools much slower.Fort is not the only one to complain about it being the fastest in ones age group/gender and being given a less than desirable lane.Meet guidelines suggest that the fastest person of an age group/gender not be given an outside lane,but you can't count on that.Fort's proactive questioning kept her from going to a meet where her times wouldn't have counted for TT and NRs and in this case her proactive planning helped her set a WR(congrats:cheerleader::cheerleader:) while slowing down the meet by 7.15 sec.I'd gladly let a meet run 8 sec long to give someone a better chance at a WR.
I have heard the gender discrimination whine before, it didn't work then, it doesn't work now. The idea that just because you are a women you are placed in an outside lane is absurd.
There was another thread just started that asks if anyone had noticed it is harder to swim in the outside lanes.In all but the best pools the outside lane is slower,in some pools much slower.Fort is not the only one to complain about it being the fastest in ones age group/gender and being given a less than desirable lane.Meet guidelines suggest that the fastest person of an age group/gender not be given an outside lane,but you can't count on that.Fort's proactive questioning kept her from going to a meet where her times wouldn't have counted for TT and NRs and in this case her proactive planning helped her set a WR(congrats:cheerleader::cheerleader:) while slowing down the meet by 7.15 sec.I'd gladly let a meet run 8 sec long to give someone a better chance at a WR.
