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.
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For the Dwight Crum Hermosa pier to pier, they recently changed it to a men's seed and a women's seed. I think it's unfair to the women. First, they do not ge the benefit of drafting off the faster guys (not a sexist thing, there are some fast women in the results but traditionally the majority of the top finishers were male). Worse though, is now they have to pick their way through the slowest of the male swimmers to get to clear water.
But there are now some 800-900 starters, which is why they hav split the start. Seeded times would be hard to administer I'd think
For the Dwight Crum Hermosa pier to pier, they recently changed it to a men's seed and a women's seed. I think it's unfair to the women. First, they do not ge the benefit of drafting off the faster guys (not a sexist thing, there are some fast women in the results but traditionally the majority of the top finishers were male). Worse though, is now they have to pick their way through the slowest of the male swimmers to get to clear water.
But there are now some 800-900 starters, which is why they hav split the start. Seeded times would be hard to administer I'd think
