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.:)
Wow. Wound kinda tight there, mister.
The rules are not being broken and it is a personal choice if someone decides to enter extra slow times. You don't have to like it, but it isn't the end of society, either.
Actually, I gather it is against the rules, and the point of the debate is that some believe that it should not be, while still others believe it should not be selectively enforced.
But I don't know, as I have never swum in a meet. I will note that knowing there's a strong likelihood that one or two people in my heat would have sandbagged their times and would humiliate me with their speed makes me less likely to ever enter a meet.
Being a slow swimmer is unsportsmanlike? Huh. Perhaps USA-S meets would be more to your liking.
As far as your mom, that's sweet. Why did you enter the 400 if it is so important to you? Sounds like you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. (Or maybe that's your mom's cake...)
Just being ridiculous to call out a ridiculous rule...nothing would give my mommy more pleasure on her birthday than to dazzle her with tales of thrashing the first heat with my awesomeness even if it is in an unsportsmanlike fashion dodging you, Erwin and many other USMS greats--'cuz that it is what I do.:)
USAS meet? I think not. The little kids make fun of my fat rolls and I'm very sensitive.
It invalidates that category of accusations for non-nationals meets, that's how. How can it be "cheating" or "illegal" or "immoral" if it's not against the rules? (I recall in a different thread you equated morality with rule compliance.) I don't prefer "tragedy of the commons" (your prior phrase) -- as I hardly think "tragedy" is an apt word.
Have you ever seen sandbagging create a "mess" at a meet? I haven't.
Is it a tragedy if you can't swim against Bobby P. or some other speedster in the same heat? Cry me a river ...
It invalidates "rule breaker," true. But not the lying, selfish part: sandbaggers misrepresent their time for personal gain in a way that inconveniences others.
"Tragedy" is not my term, that's what situations like this are called. "Degradation of common-pool resources," if you prefer. And yes, it lessens the nationals experience slightly. The term doesn't mean what you think it means here; (re-)read Hardin's paper if you like.
The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
Look, it is clear that you sandbaggers dismiss any inconvenience that your actions cause as inconsequential. I don't. We are not going to agree on that point.
This whole thread (sorry, Kurt) is basically a rant by someone who tried to break the sandbagging rule but got caught, making the following points:
-- the rule is selectively applied
-- sandbagging doesn't inconvenience anyone
-- it is justified in this case
-- it is payback for years of being surrounded by slower swimmers.
I am not sympathetic to these arguments, you and other sandbaggers are.
The only one of these points that concerns me at all is the first, which Kurt didn't support with real data. I suspect that, of the people here, only Jeff and Michael might possibly know enough to address whether the rule is indeed selectively applied.
But heck, I got more speeding tickets when I drove a sporty red car than I do now. Doesn't mean I think the speed limit is a bad law and should be abolished.
Are you arguing that there's no valid rationale for separating men and women? You know I'm not the only woman complaining about women in end lanes in mixed gender meets.
I agree meets should be seeded split gender whenever possible. For the Albatross to not be mixed gender, we'd have to drop some events to meet the timeline (mixed gender seeding saves time). The alternative would be to cut longer events and shortchange the distance swimmers. Since distance swimmers are usually the minority while women make up ~50% of the participants, it is entirely possible we should investigate. Although I guess I first need a mathematician who can extract out the subset of female distance swimmers from my hypothesis...:D
I don't recall blowing anyone's doors off at the Albatross meet (or at any meet recently), though I certainly got my doors blown off at Zones when I entered a time that was too ambitious in my untapered state. And I recall being quite pleased with your reseeding the fast women so that we could actually swim against each other.
Are you kidding me? You blasted me up and down for unilaterally changing your seed times and sent daily emails questioning my authority to do so while asking me to change them back. I don't remember the specifics, but I thought you entered with 36 and 1:18 in the 50 and 100 back before I changed them (and you went 30+ and 1:09, I think). I guess I shouldn't complain because at the end of the day you were a satisfied customer so we both got we we wanted. But I do remember it being a meet director headache and if you simply entered with your anticipated times (like the rulebook states...) there would have been no issues.
First off, I want to :cheerleader: Kurt for starting this fun thread. I think that, with the LCM season in its early days with most forumites in training but not yet competing in a lot of meets, all of our competitive juices are flowing into this one thread. It's great audience-engagement theater to watch and participate in.
But, because every thread needs a good hijack, I want to disagree with Jeff ... I agree meets should be seeded split gender whenever possible. ... because I think seeding all meets solely based upon time is the best way to minimize timeline and maximize competition. I love our local meets for the fact that we swim mixed ages and mixed genders. I can still remember the time I swam a 400 SCM IM at the Ron Johnson meet a few years back when I wasn't in sh*t-hot shape, but Susan Von der Lippe was in Lane 5. I can guarantee you that she made me much faster that day because there wasn't another guy entered in the meet who approached either of us. I'm sure Fort has that effect on many a man when seeded in a mixed gender race.
The alternative would be to cut longer events and shortchange the distance swimmers.
jroddin - I disagree with this. I suggest you just cut a few more 50s. First, why do we even swim 50s since that stops when you turn 13 (except free)?
Second, no matter what you do the sprinters will still whine, cry, sulk, complain, moan, groan, sandbag, hyperventilate, have psuedo-scientific unsupportable hunches concerning training, stomp feet, require multiple non-food inhaling devices, get colds, get the flu, write Congress, demand their own locker rooms, stage both non-peaceful and extraordinarily violent protests, and go on hunger strike anyway. What's an extra tiny bit of noise from an already overly noisy group?
Keep the peace, keep the distance events.
I suggest you just cut a few more 50s. First, why do we even swim 50s since that stops when you turn 13 (except free)?
Keep the peace, keep the distance events.
That's not entirely correct, as much as I hate to admit it. There are non-Masters world records for the 50 events and the last time I participated in one, the Fina World Cup series meets have the 50's of all strokes in them.
On a related note, as I walked around the ISHOF a couple weeks ago, I noticed an extremely old (Olympic?) medal for the 400m backstroke in one of the display cases. I wonder why they phased out the event and if there was ever a 400m fly. That's some real swimming right there :). But that's another discussion altogether.
That's not entirely correct, as much as I hate to admit it. There are non-Masters world records for the 50 events and the last time I participated in one, the Fina World Cup series meets have the 50's of all strokes in them.
Thanks for the correction.
400 meter back would be an awesome event. Makes no sense that free on your back ends at 200.
First off, I want to :cheerleader: Kurt for starting this fun thread. .
Thanks, I did debate starting it since I knew I would be on the wrong side of this one, but throwing grenades is kind of fun...if nobody gets hurt.
As far as ranting goes, if we went by word count, I was definitely not the ranter on this thread (lucid points may be another matter).
I am down with a 400 long course backstroke as I have always thought that would be my event.
I love you all despite crushing nana's and my dreams.:hug::whiteflag:
