No sandbagging: It's the law

Wow. Wound kinda tight there, mister. And the sandbaggers are not?

Keep the peace, keep the distance events. move all the distance events to the OW. (thats my contribution to this thread)

Which is more unsportsmanlike: a guy who is on the slow side knowing the 3 free event rule avoids the obvious "temptation" of entering say 50s or 100s and enters and completes a mile in close to an hour, a 400 IM in 20 plus minutes, and some other event in an inordinate amount of time or say some hypothetical guy who enters a bogus time for a 400 so he can catch the only nonstop out of Birmingham to surprise his mommy for her 85th birthday? C'mon man have a heart...it's nana we're talking about here. 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...)

:2cents: This is one of the weirdest threads I've ever read. Why not just enter the time you think you'll swim. For those swimming 100m or less, you're hopefully planning to swim at max velocity +/- the whole race anyway, so who cares what's happening next to you. For races involving some form of what I have heard distance swimmers refer to as "pacing", I could imagine that an idiot seeded next to you going much slower or faster than you would be frustrating. This would be solved if they entered a time approximating what they think they'll do in the race... YMMV.

Sandbagging may diminish the individual but as far as affecting the community, I am still not buying it. See, that's the thing about "community." Your opinion is not the only one.

I thought the position that sandbagging is bad presupposes a negative impact of varying degrees on other competitors. Exactly. So do we really need to poll the other swimmers in the heat to determine whether the sandbagging should be tolerated?

I'm glad all you guys are so willing to dismiss the concerns of the opposite sex in mixed gender meets. As I asked before, and no one answered, is it fair for the fastest women to swim in outside lanes while the fastest men swim in center lanes or for women generally to get more outside lanes? Is this concern really tantamount to seeing "shadows" in lanes? Doesn't really seem all that sporting to me or to other women. I'm not sure I understand why the gender matters, unless you're talking about a competitive standpoint of wanting to race your peers for place. In which case, sandbagging does not help either, because you've put yourself with slower swimmers. With relation to possible wake issues, anyone who isn't the fastest in their event has to deal with that potential problem. Don't the top men who are 50 or 60 years old have to deal with that as well? You also mentioned a size factor earlier, but that's simply part of the sport. As a 155-160lb guy, I deal with that at every high level meet I attend. Jeff Dash was next to me in Atlanta and he's approximately 240 lbs of solid muscle (that's not an exaggeration either). Our relay was next to Auburn, that was pleasant as well :). What I'm trying to say is that plenty of people experience your concerns, but the rules are in place to benefit the majority, not a select few. I think adversity treats you well anyways. Don't fight it. :angel:

Thanks for pointing that out, Mike. Now we can dispense with the prior accusations of cheating, rule violations, illegalities, immorality, tragedy of the commons, etc. Now we're simply down to people in the masters swim community having different opinions about the gravity and impact of sandbagging. I fail to see how the fact that sandbagging is forbidden at only nationals invalidates any of that. And it is pretty obvious that we have different opinions on the gravity/impact. So sandbagging is so abhorrent to you that you can't give Kurt one free pass to leave early when he's been sitting around FOR YEARS at meets waiting through all the slow to fast heats? You have to make attending his nana's birthday an inherently selfish act? Sometimes I think certain people just feel superior scolding others or ferreting out rule violations. You got it. I am quite sure that there are others in the distance events who would love to sandbag their times for reasons that seem eminently reasonable to them. Allowing them all to do it would be a mess (or a tragedy of the commons, if you prefer). I have been a masters member for 25 years, enduring slow to fast. I have no problem with it, since it can often prevent 80-year-olds swimming at 10pm. And somehow I've managed this without building a reservoir of simmering resentment against all the slowpokes out there. I have seen many people skip a day or an entire meet of nationals if real life conflicts in some way. So what? Geez, cry me a river already.

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..." I will keep this in mind next year at the albatross meet when I do a reverse sandbag to warm-down from an event that is scheduled to close to another favorite event.

See y'all in Auburn...and please don't enter the 400...and no spitting.:)Kurt, here's an idea: Skip the 400 at Nationals and easily make the birthday party Get your USAS registration in place Enter the 400 at the AZ State Champs the July 9th weekend at PHX You'll be there anyway, I assume The 50M pool is fixed length and has been previously measured by USMS so you can submit your time for TT This meet is far enough ahead of Nationals that you could do a mini-taper to crank out a good 400 I'll be there racing it so you're not the only other old fart in the pool Alternately, skip Auburn, the timezone change and travel hassles so you can take the easier flight to the nicer locale and swim the Southwest Zone champs at Mission Viejo (www.clubassistant.com/.../meet_information.cfm. The order of events looks kind of nice for you: Friday: 1500 Saturday: 400 free, 100 back, 200 free all well-spaced apart Sunday: 800 free, 50 back, 200 back all well-spaced apart Maybe guys like Hochstein and Kostich will show up there? I'm still considering going, though the order of events will be more difficult for me to choose.