With more and more people swimming in open water events, what is the best way to separate the heats: by gender? by speed? by age? by swimwear (wetsuit vs. non-wetsuit)? by swimmer's choice?
The need to maintain safety and segregate the swimmers into separate heats becomes more evident. But this raises many issues - none of which are easy to resolve.
If the heats are separated by speed, how do the race organizers best separate the swimmers? Is it by their best times in a pool event? If so, what pool event: the 400-meter free, the 800-meter free, the 1500-meter free? If it is by the open water races, is it by their performance in last year's event? At a different open water event? If so, what are the parameters of the open water qualification swim?
If the heats are separated by gender, and the women's heats go behind the men, is that fair to the elite women? If the heats are separated by age, what are the optimal age breaks?
An online poll at The Daily News of Open Water Swimming is showing some interesting poll results after the first few days.
I'll use the La Jolla Rough Water swim as a great example (IMHO) of getting it right and getting it wrong:
On the Gatorman race they get it right: mass start, all ages, all sexes together. I love being able to race against whoever is going to push me. Newbies might get their positioning at the start wrong the first time they do it, but, generally, people seem to know where to place themselves along with beach for a clean start.
On the Masters mile, they get it wrong by segmenting it by age. As a 40-something who'd prefer to race against the fastest out there (it would've been fun to line up and draft off Chip Peterson for the first 25 yards!), I've not liked this set up.
Extrapolating from my experience on the mile, I would imagine that most of the fast women would prefer a time-seeded start, but I could be wrong.
Like I said above, I like all people together like the Gatorman. After all, if you look at other endurance sports (tris, marathons), you don't generally see the sexes segregated.
Now, as for seed times and waves, it's a good idea, but only if people are honest with their seed times. Ideally, there would be the open water database equivalent of SWIMS for entry purposes.
I'll use the La Jolla Rough Water swim as a great example (IMHO) of getting it right and getting it wrong:
On the Gatorman race they get it right: mass start, all ages, all sexes together. I love being able to race against whoever is going to push me. Newbies might get their positioning at the start wrong the first time they do it, but, generally, people seem to know where to place themselves along with beach for a clean start.
On the Masters mile, they get it wrong by segmenting it by age. As a 40-something who'd prefer to race against the fastest out there (it would've been fun to line up and draft off Chip Peterson for the first 25 yards!), I've not liked this set up.
Extrapolating from my experience on the mile, I would imagine that most of the fast women would prefer a time-seeded start, but I could be wrong.
Like I said above, I like all people together like the Gatorman. After all, if you look at other endurance sports (tris, marathons), you don't generally see the sexes segregated.
Now, as for seed times and waves, it's a good idea, but only if people are honest with their seed times. Ideally, there would be the open water database equivalent of SWIMS for entry purposes.
