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.:)
And Kirk's defense of sandbagging
Clearly I was younger and less crotchety back then.
More seriously, the other thread adds another dimension ("practice sandbagging") and has some good posts by meet director extraordinaire Rick Osterberg.
I think Rick's post(s) on the subject really swayed my opinion. I don't think I had considered the affect sandbagging had on the meet timeline until he quantified it for us.
Where does the rule book provide guidelines for entry times?
I think I have implied several times that there are no official guidelines for submitting seed times and if there is, I am really surprised no one called me on this.
From the 2011 Rule Book (Glossary, p.xiv):
Submitted Times—those filed with an entry as having been previously achieved or reasonably estimated; also known as seed times.
Obviously "reasonably estimated" can be quite subjective. I suppose a meet director might have to exercise a "Justice Potter Stewart" decision to determine whether or not it is an attempted sandbag because if it isn't obvious the meet director should err on the side of the swimmer. Or maybe we should set up a poll on these Forums with all of the data and everybody can vote (just kidding...).
For Nationals the meet director is permitted to change the time but is required to first discuss it with the swimmer. I don't believe there are any such restrictions for meet directors at other meets. But in the case of when I've changed a seed time in a local meet, I used the rulebook definition above as my justification.
Jeff
Oh yes - and don't forget the chocolate!
But, of course! :bliss:And, that, my friend, is another thread entirely... See you on the NSR chocolate thread!
Can we agree that a top ten swimmer seeding 36 for a 50, and swimming a 30 isn't reasonable?No. Why not?
Please define your mathematically acceptable margin of error, both faster and slower than seed time, for an entry time to meet your standard of reasonableness. It appears that +/- 20% is too great an error range for you. What is acceptable?
It appears that +/- 20% is too great an error range for you. What is acceptable?
A 20% error for seeding it horrendous.
At our most recent NE LMSC SCY Champs, out of 850 swimmers in the meet, our 600th "best" seeder in the meet had an error rate of 6%, which for that person was around 7 seconds per 100 yards. (We had 50 swimmers who averaged 1.1% error or less, which was generally less than 1 second per 100 yards error.) We had one swimmer swim 11 events, and the average seed error over all 11 events was 0.48 seconds per 100 yards, or 0.61%.
We only had 40 swimmers whose error was over 10%, and only 3 who were over 20%.
My seeding error grading:
One thing I should also point out. Yes, sandbagging is a pet peeve of mine. However, I understand that this is not always a scientific process. I know we have new swimmers. I know some people are tapering for the first time. I get it. We're adults.
My only real expectation is that you think about your seed time, and make an honest effort at coming up with a seed time that accurately reflects how you expect to swim. Honest effort, people. That's all I want.
A year ago at our NE SCY champs, one swimmer on my own team massively goofed on her seed times. Way off. I don't even remember if she was way fast or way slow. But way off. Ended up on my "naughty seeders" list after the meet.
After the meet, she talked to me, and told me about a very complex formula that she had put together to estimate her seed times. She had never really competed after tapering before, and had also spent some time away from the pool on a research trip. It was quite a complex formula. (And she is a very scientific research-type person.)
In my book, she gets a 100% free pass. My goal was accomplished. She thought about her seed times. She didn't pull numbers out of the air. She thought about them. She was wrong. Oh well. But she learned from it, and the next time, she was a lot lot better. Victory, in my book.
I know we have a lot of inexperienced swimmers. Or people who have been away from the pool for decades, and are getting back, and aren't fully in the groove yet. That's great. My expectations are not high there.
But if you're someone who swims a 52-second 100 SCY freestyle, and you seed yourself at 59.99, then you're sandbagging. You know better. I expect more from you. So do all of the other swimmers around you.
-Rick
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.
How about trap door bulkheads? When deployed at the right time, sandbaggers won't get a push off the bulkhead on their flip turns. With a little engineering and a good water pump, you could eject the sandbagger into the warm up lanes.
How about trap door bulkheads? When deployed at the right time, sandbaggers won't get a push off the bulkhead on their flip turns. With a little engineering and a good water pump, you could eject the sandbagger into the warm up lanes.
That would be hilarious to watch really happen! :lmao:
