No sandbagging: It's the law

Perhaps they don't like being edged out of a top ten time by someone who knowingly doesn't follow the rules. Just because others cheat doesn't let you off the hook. I pulled The Fortresses seed times and final times from Nationals. I don't see any sandbagging. Are you confusing Kurt with Fort, or did you miss that the rule was limited to Nationals?

In terms of the morality of all this, and the use of the word "tragedy," I do think a case can be made that sandbagging has at least a few ethical tendrils into the so-called "tragedy of the commons" (albeit perhaps not perfectly so). As Wikipedia defines this: The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. This dilemma was first described in an influential article titled "The Tragedy of the Commons," written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968... Basically, a moral philosopher could make the case that individual aspirations are fine, but only up to the point where personal advantage does not encroach on other peoples' right to compete under fair circumstances. There are at least three common reasons for sandbagging, at least as far as I can see: 1. You don't want to be swamped by being stuck in an end lane in a heat with multiple lummoxes 2. You want to optimize recovery time between events--thus if two sprints are back to back, you'd prefer to swim early in the first event and late in the second to maximize the rest interval between these two all out exertions 3. You would like to take as many "bites of the apple" as possible--i.e., swim the actual 50 of a given stroke, then get split requests on the 200s, relay lead offs, etc. All the above make clear sense for some out to get their best shot at top times. The question becomes, to what extent does this quest for personal advantage encroach on other people's right to have a fair race? I would argue that in the vast majority of cases, sandbagging of this sort doesn't really hurt most other swimmers, especially if the sandbagger tells those in adjacent lanes what he or she is up to so they won't be absolutely bamboozled. Where there is more significant harm to other swimmers, I would argue, is--in descending order of importance: 1. When your attempt to avoid being swamped by lummoxes leads you to swamp somebody else who doesn't deserve it, something that is particularly unfair when NT swimmers compete against octagenerians 2. The notion that sandbagging can, in fact, hold up lengthy meets, causing others to miss their connecting flights or spend more time at the pool than they really want to 3. The notion (again, remedied by informing your immediate competitors what you are up to) that you can throw off somebody's race when they think you are going to swim X time, and after 25 yards, you have practically lapped them 4. And finally, robbing those who are inspired by head to head competition of the opportunity to raced you head to head (this, in my hierarchy, at least, is the lowest priority.) I suppose in the final analysis, the best way to look at the Tragedy of the Commons Dilemma with regards to swimming meets is to ask yourself, What if everyone did it? I think if this were the case, the meet would degenerate into scheming rancour and become more about gaming the system than actually swimming your best. Like gluttonous termites on a wooden boat, each one out to get more than his fair share of the limited sustenance, well...I think we know the fate of such termites! None of this is meant as a condemnation of sandbagging. But I do think you can look at the issue in moral terms, and it is not completely jejune to do so!

I propose Title IX-b. Any swimming forums receiving federal funding must give the same weight to female comments that are given to male comments. In fact, to make up for years of discriminatory practices, male posters for the foreseeable future should be forced to type with specially designed Title IX-b keyboards embedded with softwxre thut randimqly xhanjes litter confugtratiousns, skroowing ip spilling, and maeking sayd commints seems bad and dimb.

have wondered whether the most selfish people are those that enter the maximum number of events at every meet. The least-selfish swimmers don't enter meets at all. In fact, extending this reasoning to its logical conclusion, the most saintly swimmers don't actually train in the pool, so they don't take up any pool space even in practice. So I nominate Jazz as the paragon of swimming virtue: he hardly trains in the pool (usually on his own), doesn't sandbag from what I can recall, and enters only a few of the shortest events on those infrequent occasions that he does feel the urge to compete. Barely a ripple on the timeline. At the other end of the spectrum we have people like Laurie Hug and Thomas Patterson: they train like crazy, swim the maximum number of events -- often nothing under 200 -- and generally make everyone else feel like complete slackers. And they do it with a smile, too. We should vote those bozos off the island.

I do think that legal split requests are in the same ethical limbo land as sandbagging. Example: a person enters, say, 4 minutes for the 200 fly, swims the first 50 in 24 seconds and the next 3 x 50 in 1:12 each. Chances are that the other people in that heat are going to be elderly, or new swimmers, or relatively slow for a variety of reasons. Again, if you tell the people in the lane what you are up to, it shouldn't be a big problem, though I can definitely see swamping some of the elderly with your wake off the first turn. You don't see split requests in international non-masters swimming (other than relay lead offs) because of the need to qualify to make it to the finals. I think that masters, because we don't have qualifying heats, allows this, but to be honest, I am ambivalent about split requests in general because they give all out sprinters an advantage over competitors who swim a wider range of events. Why should sprinters get 3 or more chances to do a best 50 time per meet, but those hoping to do well in sprints and longer distances can't really get as many chances (without ruining their longer distance chances)? All sorts of ethical conundrums here, and I can see why you, as a sprinting purist, would feel defensive about any questions of unfairness, but that doesn't entirely eliminate such questions.

Rules will always be subject to interpretation. The point is that we all know very well what is meant by the term "sandbagging." Some may not view it as unsportsmanlike. I do. The rest of this thread is a lot of wind and smoke.

The issues of split requests and mixed gender meets would make good "Both Sides of the Lane Line" fodder though. They'd have to have a complete issue of Swimmer Magazine dedicated solely to these subjects, and even then the battle would continue!! :)

The rest of this thread is a lot of wind and smoke. I don't know about wind and smoke, but I am pretty sure I can fertilize my lawn with this statement. The point is that we all know very well what is meant by the term "sandbagging."

I knew you would respond thusly ... Sounds a bit like you're now making moral judgments about the number of yards people train and race? Distance swimmer deserve to swim more events at meets? I don't feel like a slacker just because I'm a sprinter. Though I grant you we are a whiney lot. Apparently sprinters are a little oversensitive, too...it was meant as a joke not a moral judgment.

Sandbagging is by its definition dishonest: one is purposefully misrepresenting a time. This is all very confusing to me. That is all there is to the definition? "One is purposefully misrepresenting a time"? Which time is it that a sandbagger is misrepresenting. The time I estimated I would go? The time that I went last week in practice? The time I am capable of going on my best swim ever? The time I am going to swim at the meet? I hope you mean the predictive one, and I hope you are accurate to the point that we can talk investments.