It seems the Meet Manager software screwed up the 50 Breast prelims results, making it look like Spendrift Beck had obliterated the world record. This caused them to measure the pool length and the found it 0.03 meters short. Now USA swimming has disallowed all times swum before Sunday's finals.

Our club team coach says he has heard some teams are considering legal action to try to recoup the travel expenses wasted. If this happened, would this lawsuit be against the university or Aggie Swim Club?

See the Swimming World article and comments at http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/18081.asp

The Meet Manager software probably didn't cause the problem. The timing console and touchpads report the times to Meet Manager. I heard some of the backup timers were sloppy.

As for the length error - there is no excuse for that. They fixed it by Sunday's finals but all of the other races are essentially invalid. I have no idea who is responsible for the bulkhead placement - the Rec Center staff or someone else?

It has already turned into an Aggie joke.

Athletics paid the Rec a hefty sum for the pool and its services...It looks like athletics didn't get what they paid for...

who set it up?

The Rec

I don't know if it is part of the joke but a head referee close to our team who had a son on the Aggie swim team is saying it was a guy from cougar high that was running the pool when the bulkhead was installed. Still, I guess we employed him so must take responsibility.

According to the Masters swimming board, a Masters swimmer had a laser with him and detected the distance error. I know this swimmer (he is an architect) but I don't know if the story is true.

Several Masters swimmers competed in this meet.

As a former Rec employee, I can tell you that the life guards normally set the bulkheads and it is a completely manual process. If memory serves, basically there are floatation chambers that are inflated to bring the bulkheads off the gutter. Then the life guards litterally push the bulkheads across the pool and deflate them again. To be ~1 inch off is very possible. Not to mention the touchpads that rest on the gutter tend to jut out from the wall and the bulkheads give a little when you push off anyway. Even though the .03M really has no impact on the times considering the other variables, we look like fools for messing this one up.

All that said, I always thought that any top tier meet had all this measured and checked by USS officials before the start of each session.

^
|
|
Wrong direction on my previous thumb

^see how errors are committed

Bultman interview addressing this.....

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/18086.asp

And again:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/olympics/stories/052208dnspoolyswim.3a6d41c.html?npc

If my calculations are correct, we're talking 1.18 inches over a 165 ft run. Is that really worth throwing out all the results?

H20, as a current REC lifeguard employee (but home for the summer so I missed the fiasco), you are mostly correct. The bulkheads are indeed inflated and moved to the desired location, and all of this is done by lifeguards. But, when they are deflated and rest on the actual pool gutter, they can only be anchored in predetermined locations (i.e. 25 yd, 25m, mens and womens water polo). The bulkheads must be anchored, so its not like they just kinda guessed. I really dont understand how this could have happened, unless the anchor locations have been in the wrong spot the whole time. Very very strange if you ask me, but they better get it together before we host NCAA's. Also, it has never been standard to measure the pool before a meet, but I assume they will change that now.

Ol Jock - FINA (the international swimming body that writes the rules and tracks world records) is very specific about pool dimensions. USA Swimming usually follows FINA 99.9% of the time. Because all record swims are electronically timed to the 1/100th of a second, pool dimensions could be a factor. People win and lose races by 1/100th of a second.

By my own math - a 3 cm error in pool length could reduce the elapsed time of a 60 second 100 meter race by .036 seconds. That is significant when world records are at stake.

I believe USA Swimming however should accept these times for Olympic Trials qualifying. The errors are too small to deny a swimmer the chance to compete at Trials. No records of course can be accepted.

But this is a ridiculous error for the Rec. Even if the pool is not routinely measured - it should be for any meet with elite swimmers involved. The bulkhead anchor points should be double checked so they cannot create errors like this easily.

This error cost a Masters swimmer a world record.

Edit: FINA allows a pool error of minus 0.00 and plus 0.03 meters. Unfortunately our error was on the minus side....

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 5/23/2008 1:16p).]

The current rumor is that overtightening of the lane ropes causedthe problem.

What a shame. From this point forwrd I'm sure that measureing the pool willbe SOP. Really stinks for the Masters swimmer and the folks who made their olypic trials cuts. Supposedly they will reevaluate the trials question this coming week.

I hope the Masters swimmer still has something in the tank and can swim at the meet in Austin.

In reply to the OP, the Aggie Swim Club had no part in setting up and running this meet. Also, this can happen anywhere. I was at a meet at the University of Houston this weekend, and our Coach brought his laser to make sure the distance was correct due to the ordeal at the Rec Center. As it turns out, their pool was 3 cm too short as well. In order to remedy that problem, our coach had to run to a nearby store and by those big yellow tow straps, and they used them to pull the two bulkheads closer together. ( U of H has a pool that has two bulkheads at one end of the pool that seperate it from the warm-up/warm-down pool) In the end, the pool was the correct length but this did cause the meet to start about 45 minutes later.

agswim

Did they determine the cause?

No, not that I heard of, my guess is that the bulk head anchor points werent exactly acurate on one side of the pool. I think this must be the cause because one side of the pool(lane 8) was exactly 50 meters and the other side (lane 1) was too short, and the distance gradually changed in the middle lanes.

I asked around this morning. It was the bulkhead anchor that was placed at the wrong length when the pool was originally built, so it looks as if every meet there might have been the incorrect distance. --- Referring to University of Houston pool not Rec Center

[This message has been edited by agswim15 (edited 5/28/2008 7:37p).]

That is an inaccurate statement. The pool has been measured for world class meets at that distance in the past.

Well, you may be correct, but the bulkhead anchors do not allow for any margin of error, considering you have to screw a "bolt" like object into them, so I am not sure how they could have been just off this one time.

I'm not claiming to know which meets the pool has been measured for and which ones it has not, but the three world class meets that I know of that have been held at the rec were not LCM.

1) World Cup - SCM
2) US Open - SCM
3) NCAA's - SCY

I would not be surprised at all if there have been LCM meets where the pool has been measured, I just can't think of which one it would have been.

In my post, I was reffering to the University of Houston pool. The Rec Center has been correct at every meet except for this one. This meet was only incorrect because the over tightening of lane lines caused a bracket to break.

My bad.

No, it was my bad for not being specific.

Neither of you guys had anything to do with the problem. So you're both good in my book.

But they better not let that happen again. There is just no excuse.

Here's the official statement from USA swimming regarding the short pool times. As for the non-USA swimmers who would have qualified for their country's Olympic team, I guess it will be up to those teams to petition FINA to allow them to qualify.

quote:

---

The times swam at the Texas Senior Circuit Meet at Texas A&M University will not be considered eligible for entry into USA Swimming's official times database. However, swimmers who swam first-time qualifying times for Olympic Team Trials and other USA Swimming Championships during sessions that the pool was determined to be short will be eligible for entry in those events at the minimum qualifying time standard. Since the pool length was not the fault of the athletes, USA Swimming has made a one-time exception due to the unusual circumstances of the situation.

---

USA-S did the right thing for a change. Good news for the US athletes.

I agree that the decision is appropriate. I ran into my old USS coach for the first time in about 5 years last week and he thought that it was a very slippery slope to allow the times and it should not be done. That being said, I think this compromise will likely appease both sides. Good call USS!