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.:)
How do I know what seed times to put down for Auburn
If I were you I'd put down your best times or best times converted and just swim your best. If you made the 4th event QT then enter it. Don't worry about it, just give it the best effort you can!
I don't care if people manipulate their seed times for whatever reason. I'm with you on that, Q. Personally, I try to enter expected times because I like to race and I believe that being next to a swimmer likely to race me is far more valuable than the value of 'clear' water or a 'non-outside-lane.' But, those are my personal value judgements. I get it that some people value things differently. I also get it, to Kurt's original point, that sometimes a meet schedule and life schedule conspire so that sandbagging is a viable and respectable option to be able to swim the race you trained hard for, traveled long for and tapered exquisitely for.
One thing I should also point out. Yes, sandbagging is a pet peeve of mine.
:rofl:
I expect more from you. So do all of the other swimmers around you.
I don't.
Homework: Please define 'all'.
They are usually pre-med; maybe he missed his calling? :bolt:
Let's pity the guy on the yacht because he could have been on a different yacht? That logic does seem to fit in quite well to this thread. :angel:
The thread seems to be turning more towards rules and meets instead of the damnation of inidividuals and sandbaggers.
For those that are in favor of intentional misrepresentation of seed times, go run a meet where you have a set time to complete the meet and see the true affect of sandbagging.
I don't care if people manipulate their seed times for whatever reason. Does that make me "in favor of intentional misrepresentation of seed times"? I say no, anti-sandbaggers may post rebuttals to my no, and anyone who shares my opinion and has remained silent so far will probably decide they made the right choice. At this point, I agree with the third group and wish I was still a member.
If a meet is being run where the timeline is of great concern will damning sandbaggers solve the problem?
I have looked at the meet info sheet and read everything Rick has written about NE Champs, and I am at a loss why a meet director wouldn't take similar steps in requiring seed times, capping entries, reviewing the submitted seeds and publishing that all this will happen in the meet info. I think his grading system is a step too far but it seems the meet is still popular and maybe publishing these grades really does improve future seed times.
I don't understand why someone would use the glossary of the rule book as justification for something you know you are going to do, when it would be straight forward to add two sentences to meet info. I do not know if it was funny or sad that something is technically in the rule book while technically not a rule.
Anti-sandbaggers who don't run your own meet, either start you own meet or petition for the rule to be added to the rule book.
I am concerned that all this focus on "sandbaggers delay meets" leads to "slow people delay meets." Someone I know (who isn't all that slow) was told "Oh you are the reason meets take so long" when they entered a local meet. Recently. That is appalling. I want to see more people competing, not less. The anti-sandbagger vitrol BS is a step beyond a pet-peeve of mine.
not sure if it's sanbbagging or not, but I just entered my first USMS meet with time from last summers Worlds. I swam really bad because of injuries during 2009-10.
I know I can swim faster today than 10 months ago, but not sure I can reach my 2009 "masters" best. So there is a chance that I swim 400 fr and IM up to 15s faster and my 50 and 100 are 1-3s faster.
I'm racing this weekend in long course for the first time since worlds and if I swim faster than my sign up times I will email the host team and ask if they can change them.
Why couldn't meets just use a database to discover a swimmer's best time over a previous period, say a year, and seed accordingly? More competitive heats and less waiting around: sounds good to me.
This is similar to what USA-S does. It will be a better option for USMS once our results database is more inclusive, which hopefully will happen in the next couple of years. Even now, I seem to recall that when you enter nationals online, during the process a seed time is suggested for you which corresponds to this "best" time (I don't know the time window).
Thanks for your advice, Peter! I saw the outdoor pool when we were at Auburn, and, I have no intention of swimming in at, as nice as it looked!
I hope you are right about the dive well, at Auburn, because it was very warm at Athens, as was the other indoor pool for the students.
Verifying these temps. would not only help me; it would help out others like Swimcat who I know has similar issues. Of course, we can just wait until we arrive to find out, but that extra peace of mind would do wonders! :D
I responded to this in the LCM Nationals thread. Figured it was getting a bit off topic.
