I swam it. They pulled all the swimmers who had not reached the mile and a half mark when a lifeguard saw a lightning bolt. All but about 15 men and maybe 20 women were pulled. The rest of us swam the last half mile and were not aware of what had happened until after we finished.
I only know that Larry Wood won 55-59. I think that most of the other age group winners were from NY but, 2 were from New Hampshire or Maine. Most of the older swimmers were pulled.
Apparently, they are awarding 4th place All Star NC points to every USMS swimmer who started.
I am not sure what rule permits that.
I think some swimmers who were pulled, accidently went through the finish chute and their chips registered. There was a lot of confusion and I hope they got the results right.
Other than that, it was a cool race in a nice place. I would do it again, but the decision to pull most of the swimmers, was a poor one under the circumstances. A nasty chop heading out made it interesting.
in retrospect, i think the only fair solution to the lightning situation would have been to stop all the swimmers and do the event over. there was some concern that some people could not stick around for a re-do, but i suspect they would have numbered few. a little post event research has led me to the conclusion that there is no way everyone that claimed to have finished the swim (the flawed honor system at work here) actually did.
the solution was an ad lib one as there were no real guidelines in place to deal with such a situation, but i think in the future, only a do-over should be considered for a national championship event.
Chaos, I think that the organizers made the best of a bad situation. My disagreement is with the decision to turn 75% of the swimmers back. I didn't see lightning, or hear thunder and was unable to find anyone who did.
The risk of injury is always present in OW. In this case the race could have continued for all swimmers with little additional risk. The disappointment of the swimmers who were pulled was understandable.
I think the vast majority of the swimmers were honest. They knew they had to be and I think they were.
The results have not been posted, so we don't even know who finished.
At this point, I am going to presume that everyone understood their obligation and told the truth.
www.sawbellies.org/ResultsOpen2009.pdf
the results have been slightly modified, though my opinion (i am not alone here) is that they remain flawed.
the compromised solution for recording the results was based largely on the "honor system", and was sold claiming that a re-swim would be too taxing for the older swimmers and others had planes to catch. i doubt that those numbers combined would come anywhere close to the number of swimmers who had to settle for DNF.
i don't believe that a national championship (yes i know this is not the olympics) should be decided by the honor system.... before i am accused of having a "self serving opinion", let me say that certain remarkable times were brought to my attention by no less than 4 other swimmers whose researching skills far exceed my own. it is always possible to have a bad day in the pool or in open water, but to have the swim of your life under those conditions should cause anyone to have their doubts..... and i have mine.
wow, what a mess.
I have found that it is quite easy to cheat at OW events. for out-and-back courses, all you have to do is duck under water as a faster group headed back, and most of the time, there isn't really anyone in a position to stop you. in cable swims, unless you're me, you're swimming right next to the rope anyways. in circular or weird-shaped courses, there are always opportunities to trim corners. In this case, sounds like folks did the duck-under/turn-around, went over the mats and no one was the wiser.
I have been to only two USMS National Championship OW events, and I don't or won't question the level of in-water support of those events. However, I think the situation of this year's 1-3 mile event shows that for these National Championship-named events, USMS, LMSCs, and/or the hosts should probably provide additional race support, in the event of weather emergencies.
It seems to me that there is currently no existing plan in place regarding handling lightning at USMS OW events (I can't find my rulebook to verify). I don't know that this needs to be "rule" per se, but perhaps the OW Committee can draft guidelines to be followed in that situation.
What should have happened in this case (and in every OW event where people quit mid-race) is that anyone who "got pulled" after the bolt of lightning should have been sent off-course to another area away from the finishing beach. This way, there is zero chance of them being confused for a legitimate finisher. I also think it would be prudent for a group to be present at turnarounds to attempt to record swimmer cap #s as they round a buoy for home. For some large races, I agree this is probably not realistic, but for a race like this with a couple hundred swimmers, it would have been easy to do.
