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.:)
It is MY definition, but I would say: the time you think you'll go in a meet.
So this whole argument is based in economics... Game Theory... What we think they think they will go? How exactly would we model that so sandbagging could actually be considered well defined?
Gull! Quit holding back buddy. If sandbagging can be tangibly defined I want the definition. I feel Chris' definition is accurate just not tangible. You have the definition don't you? I think you are holding back on me... but I don't know for sure.
Reflecting upon this dripping with moral superiority thread where the only female POV is dismissed
Perhaps no other female agrees with you.
Originally Posted by The Fortress forums.usms.org/.../viewpost.gif
I don't recall blowing anyone's doors off at the Albatross meet
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). QUOTE]
Sounds like you were trying to cheat. You and Charles Barkley, role models delux.
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.
Actually I do sandbag, quite often. But that's very sweet of you.
Unfortunately, "Paragon of Swimming Virtue" doesn't quite fit in the character limit for user titles, so I had to abbreviate.
Have you polled them? I have.
And there were other women sandbagging at Mr. Roddin's meet, one going after a WR for example. One of the nicest women I know, hardly Charles Barkley material. And another female WR backstroker has sandbagged every time she's ever swum in that meet. And another woman says she's doing it next year. And another woman wrote asking for separate seeding. Definitely a lot of "cheating" women at this meet who don't appear to sandbag or complain at other meets. Huh.
Wow, I'd love to see the results of your "poll". I'm sure the questions weren't biased, and the polled group was a reflection of women swimmers who compete at meets. Entering a 36 when you did a 30? Come on.
In our little forum discussion you don't have too many female supporters. 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 wonder how many top ten times you have where you knowingly entered a false time to gain an advantage over your fellow competitors. Perhaps a little s behind your name would make it better.
I agree that the max number of events should be adjusted. I'm all for women and mens heats. It would be nice to have a true national championship, but that's another topic that doesn't answer why you think it's ok to enter false times to gain an advantage.
I want to understand the perspective of the "it's unsportsmanlike" crowd on a situation like this:
Let's say you're the fast seed in a circle-seeded prelims-finals event.
You're fairly studly, have good control of your pace and the field of competitors isn't strong enough to threaten your ability to make it back to the Top 8.
You're getting on the blocks to swim, you've seen all the other times and you feel like swimming not smack in the middle of the pool in finals ... for whatever reason.
You swim a time that lands you in lane 1 or 8 for the finals.
Say, you're Nathan Adrian at NCAAs this year in the 100 free.
You promptly come back in the evening, crush the swim from the start, get clear water and win the event ... exactly what everyone expected, but well faster than your 'seed' time for the finals.
Courting the ire of JimRude for besmirching the good name of a great Golden Bear, I ask, was that unsportsmanlike? Unethical? Or just great competitive strategy?
If you are perfectly comfortable with that and think that's jiggy with your ideals of what's sportsmanlike and what's not, how, except by a matter of degrees, is it different when Kurt enters a slower time going into the meet? We all know that Kurt's likely to swim fast (e.g., just as the entire field at NCAAs knew that Adrian would be fast in the evening). And, just like Adrian, Kurt will deftly avoid racing head-to-head with the guys who will place near him when the bubbles all settle and the live results are updated.
I can live with someone believing that sandbagging is unsportsmanlike (I don't), but you gotta define "by how much" and then consistently implement it. Take the speed limit as an example. We all know the cops give us a margin of error (it's roughly 10mph here in Arizona) before you're really considered to be speeding. We all live with that. Define the ethical/sportsmanlike range of sandbagging mathematically and then we can all move forward on safe moral ground.
I think our time is better spent trying to find solutions. Here are two of my ideas:
1. Free-for-all events. Enter whatever time you want and swim whatever race you want. Random seeding.
2. Guest Olympic ringers. If someone is identified as a sandbagger in advance, s/he is not notified, nor is the time changed. Instead, the ringers will replace the swimmers on both sides of the sandbagger and swim sprint freestyle. Guest ringers include Roland Schoeman and Alain Bernard.
No. He entered a slower time for the sole purpose of swimming in an earlier heat. Note the "and/or" in my definition. He admitted that it was deliberate. And the time was substantially slower than what he was both planning to swim and capable of swimming, to the extent that it was obvious to the meet director.
Look up the definition of "sole" sometime, but moving on to even less important matters. No one knew Kurt was sandbagging until he admitted it, true statement?
No one knew Kurt was sandbagging until he admitted it, true statement?
It certainly appeared that he was, at least to the meet director, which is why he questioned him. But once again you are avoiding the real question, which is whether or not you believe that sandbagging is unsportsmanlike. Regardless of how we choose to define it, you clearly do not. So this whole discussion is academic.
