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.:)
Is this the new tech suit thread? I totally missed out on that endlessly repetitive argument based on meaningless drivel the last eight times around but I am on board for this one.
For those of you who actually compete enough to have reasonable approximations of what times you will go, good for you! Remind me to pat you on the head the next time I see you.
For those of you who expect heats to be reasonably competitive, dial back your expectations. This is masters swimming, the person next to you on the blocks is there just as likely from a made up time that is too fast as a made up time that is too slow. We don't have a SWIMS database to verify times against, nor do some (most?) of us compete enough that a SWIMS database/estimations would be all that meaningful.
At a championship meet where sandbagging could affect the timeline for the distance events and it becomes a logistical problem for finishing the meet in a timely fashion, the number of entrants could be capped or a qualification time could be required, either would allow for an estimated timeline. Shockingly, one or both of these solutions is already used by most meets with time constraints.
For the events that are below a 400, do a timeline analysis of a random seed compared to circle seeding, throw in the actual seeding and timeline for good measure. I would love to see it published how many minutes could be saved.
For those of you who want more competitive competition, look no further! http://www.usaswimming.org/
Not sure I understand your post. Are you going to pat me on the head next time you see me? Endless drivel? Arguing about nothing is what we do here. No data base? I think there is one. More competition? Not really desired...that is why I have not swam an age group meet in over 20 years. Timeline for a few random sandbaggers? I'm sure CS is working on it. I suspect it would not differ more than 10 minutes for the 400.
I know a couple people that aren't getting the deluxe Cam Newton Sightseeing tour unless their attitude toward the great state of Alabama changes some.
My attitude toward Alabama is great -- our wonderful and never publicly maligned state of Arizona owes Alabama a great deal as I seem to recall our Dept of Education crowing every year about how we just edged out Alabama (or was it Mississippi?) to NOT be the last in national educational rankings.
Bottom line: There is no way to apply this rule in an even manner.Absolutely.
For those of you who want more competitive competition, look no further! http://www.usaswimming.org/A funny thing happens to me when I go to mid-season meets and race agains the kids. I don't know if this is a rule or common practice, but the kids always seem to be entered in their absolute best times from SWIMS regardless of what meet they're swimming in. Early season and mid-season, these guys are all over the map in their performance relative to their entry times.
Bottom line - take a clue from the songstress of our times and Just Race! But, don't let the meet director become the arbitrary meet dictator and start changing people's entry times.
He's in Charlotte now. Gee, thanks a lot.
When he left auburn for charlotte, did he take a paycut?
Aside from the timing and a bad cow-tipping memory from Auburn, a big reason for me NOT to go to summer Nationals is that Auburn is a pain to get to ... pretty much for everyone except those who live there.
I live close to alabama. Auburn is still a pain in the butt to get too by car. I drive to atlanta, head west from there. Once I get to where the interstate ends and the dirt road begins(usually at the GA/AL state line) I have to wait until the dirt road dries out from the rain. Otherwise, I would be stuck. We have to fill-up with gas before entering AL, since grass and hay work better for horse fuel than car fuel.
If we had both prelims and finals, sandbagging would be less of an issue. Since we only have timed finals, the practice appears self-serving and unsportsmanlike.
Agreed
For those of you who expect heats to be reasonably competitive, dial back your expectations. This is masters swimming, the person next to you on the blocks is there just as likely from a made up time that is too fast as a made up time that is too slow.
While I agree with most of your post, it ignores the basic tenet of sportsmanship, if that is important, or fair, or both, probably neither.
It's my hunch, but not something that I can prove that the faster 2-3 heats in most meets have accurate seed times, or seed times based on experience (and possibly on experienced sandbagging).
Ironically, in some meets the fastest heat can be the least competitive, with the ultra fast swimmers in lanes 4 and 5 and some hangers-on in the other lanes. It brings back the fond memories of being in the same heat of the 1000 with Justine Mueller and Joseph Arnold.
Oh, and if you post pictures of yourself with Strawberry Shortcake lunch attire, you are prohibited from making fun of arguing about nothing.
Strangely, kids don't seem to care what seed time someone enters with. Is it a learned trait with age to worry about something this insignificant? The only times I've ever heard anyone complain about someone else's seed times, it was either a masters swimmer, a disgruntled coach, or a uptight age group parent (and this was pretty rare), but never a competitor 8-18, nor collegiate for that matter.... that's just an observation :)
Just beat everyone in your event and you got nothing to worry about seed times :D
:Lurking: OK, I was lurking until now; I'll admit it! But, I didn't want Fort to be stuck being the only woman on the thread, so I thought I would jump in.
I try to provide seed times as accurately as possible, but I must have had delusions of grandeur thinking I would beat my PB's (used as my seed times) in Mesa. :frustrated: Those conditions and my medical issues didn't mix and I knew that when I signed up, but I did not want to miss out on Nationals. It must have been fun for all of the others who seeded at 38.something in my 50 breaststroke heat, when I came in panting with jello arms and legs at 42.whatever-it-was-I-don't-want-to-remember. :blush:
Sandbagging is putting a time that is slower than you expect, normally a good bit slower, to improve your heat position. It is not putting a stretch time and not hitting it for whatever reason.
Kurt:
I feel your pain.
Aside from the timing and a bad cow-tipping memory from Auburn, a big reason for me NOT to go to summer Nationals is that Auburn is a pain to get to ... pretty much for everyone except those who live there.
Be happy that at least Paul Smith seems to have gotten the hang of swimming distance events fastest to slowest at his local meets. Maybe the other 3 guys who run meets in Arizona (attention: Simon Percy, Mark Rankin and Jim Stites) will catch on.
I promise to try to start swimming longer events at local meets so you're not so lonely. :bighug:
On sandbagging and entry times in general:
I try to follow a sort of golden rule for entering meets: enter the time I think I'm capable of going given all the life and training factors leading up to the meet.
I don't like sandbaggers, but I also don't like rose-colored glasses optimists who swim way slower than their times, primarily for a reason Chris gave: I like competition.
With that said, I don't like the idea of a meet director discussing how to adjust my times. If this concept catches on, the people who will be most penalized will be those who race the most because they have the greatest volume of data from which a random meet director can 'estimate' their 'proper' entry time.
It's amazing what running a meet/or being involved with running a meet can do to alter your perception of things like this!!
Please always enter an NT if the event is seeded slowest to fastest!
Aside from running fastest to slowest in the distance events we also found that if we can set up the course to allow for a "free" lane we can actually keep running heats around a swimmer that is entered with an extremely slow time (47 minute mile being the case in point)....you need a good Hy-Tek operator and always communicate with the swimmer!
Forts point is a good one as well...at this years state meet we ran separate heats for men and women and it went great and didn't add a significant amount of time to the timeline, so going forward we will do this for all of our meets (the exception might be a single male or female entered in an event than we would most likely merge...
With regard to a meet director discussing times with a swimmer who may be sandbagging, I will absolutely do it if its a blatant case that is impacting the meet experience for the people around them...so Dickson be warned!! :)
But outside of nationals, is there a USMS meet where you feel like you see more competition than a local USA-S meet?I think I'm lucky in that, for almost any event I swim at almost any Arizona Masters meet, there's someone to race against. We've got a great set of fast guys from the 20-somethings to the 40-somethings who will push me or beat me in pretty much any race I want to enter. About the only race I consistently swim 'alone' here is the 400 IM, but I'm sure that'll change now that I just said that.
The kids meets definitely provide more depth of competition and there's a freshness to racing the kids since I generally don't know these kids' racing styles, strengths, race strategies, etc. as well as I do know those things for some of my fellow Masters.
Now here's the kicker to this story. I just read in the last couple years that the coach of the third swimmer--the one with the dubious seed time--was reprimanded by USA Swimming for entering his swimmers with bogus times. As in they hadn't achieved Sectional times, but he falsified results to make it look like they had. So, looks like the disgruntled parent all those years ago may have been on to something!
Certainly a notable story, but also notable was that it only seems to have effected the people who weren't competing. :) Did the "bad seed" have any effect on the outcome?
