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.:)
Look, it is clear that you sandbaggers dismiss any inconvenience that your actions cause as inconsequential.
This is a great quote. Sandbagging is a self-centered act. I don't think anyone can deny that.
Isn't this a self-centered sport? Afterall, when we are swimming, aren't we swimming for ourselves?
Sure, and feel free to do whatever you want when you're out training by yourself, but when you're a member of a team or attending a meet I think you've got an obligation to consider the consequences of the things you do and how they may affect everyone else.
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.
Australia Masters keeps record for the 50,100,200,400 and 1500M in each stroke.
I recently swam a 50 fly where I had provided my best time as a seed time. I decided to swim it at a moderate pace to save energy for an event after that one.
Out of what I thought was consideration, I told a friend of mine swimming in the next lane what I intended to do, and it was the first time that particular person had even shown a hint of annoyance. He wanted a race. I wanted a rest. I got my way. He still did his best time in a jammer.
Wookie - You keep bringing up the same comment about this being an independent sport. I think we can all agree if Kurt swam in the first heat with full disclosure to all, there would be little to no harm done. And his reasoning for doing so would be acceptable to all in the heat. And people would agree with you that swimming is an individual sport.
However, what if we took every compelling story into account and seeded everybody per their special needs (can't swim in an end lane, can't swim in a shallow lane, can't swim next to a man, can't swim in a lane where there are shadows, etc.) and the timeline took an extra hour (easy to do) each day at Nationals. That's where your theory about this only being an individual sport goes awry. Stay in practice and/or swim on your own if you don't want your actions to affect others. But if you are going to compete, then deal with the consequences that your submitted time (seed time) does in fact affect the running of the meet as well as those around you whether you like it or not. If everybody thought of only themselves, we wouldn't have a very well organized Nationals.
If you open the "exceptions" floodgate for one, how are you going to tell the next swimmer who has an even more compelling story why he/she can't get special treatment? Especially when they say, "but you let that one guy swim in the first heat of the 400..."
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.
Spoken by an expert whiner.
400 meter back would be an awesome event. Makes no sense that free on your back ends at 200.
I agree with you on this one. You would get to see me swim a distance event if there was a 400 meter backstroke(I would still need a lap counter though)
I just spent 4 days racing in a USAS meet where all the kids were entered in their best times for prelims and then we were all, obviously, entered in our prelims times for finals. Here's my "AHA" that I think all swimmers need to understand: heat sheets are works of fiction. 99+% of the time, all swimmers' performances will vary from their entered time. In particular, what I saw this weekend was that the delta in performances between prelims swims and finals (both faster and slower) was often more dramatic than the differences between initial heat sheets and prelims performance.
People need to get over the illusion of the heat sheet as predictive of that day's performance and just race.
