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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The number of officials and timers required for summer swim meets seems overly excessive for a rec league. Even for USA swimming, dual meets only require 3-4 officials and 2 timers per lane. Regular timed final meets only require 4 officials. Are summer swim meet times official as per USA swimming? If not, I would advise to drop the dog pony show of 3 watches per lane and so many stroke and turn officials. Those stopwatch times, whether one or three, are not very accurate anyway. They are almost always faster than the real time. [/quote]

Do you really not understand that the two timers are backups for the touchpad in higher-level swim?[/quote]

I do, actually, because I am a usa swimming official. My point is that summer swim meets are not USA swimming meets, so they don’t follow the same rules. The officials do not need to be USA swimming officials, the pools don’t have to be standard size, the age rules are not followed, etc etc. So why do you have to follow their timing rules?

In USA swimming meets, you need 3 watches if there are no primary or secondary automated or semi automated timing systems. Why can’t summer swim only have one timer? Accuracy isn’t a great answer because as I said before, watch times are not even very accurate. And having three timers just ensures that people will get complacent and make mistakes. The officials also note order of finish to confirm or question watch times.

Arguing that you need 3 timers because it’s tedious to average 2 watch times is a weak argument. Anyway, meet manager will do the calculation, so it’s more a matter of data entry. Meet manager takes one backup time, averages two backup times, or takes the median of 3 backup times when there is no primary time. It’s easier to take one watch time than to inspect 3 watch times for the median, but that not the reason to go to one timer. It’s to alleviate the volunteer burden, which is obviously an issue because so so so many people complain about it.

FYI, minimum number officials for usa swim meets

https://www.usaswimming.org/docs/default-source/officialsdocuments/misc-officials/meet-considerations-clarification.pdf

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Summer swim is a team sport. Teams are competing against each other to win. After every race, the times are posted on timing boards so people can see who got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Kids freak out at close races. It’s fun.  By averaging the times in software you are removing that whole element in swimming and making it much more like the boring club meets all the rest of the year. No thanks.  If this is how you feel, stick with club swim and skip the fun summer swim.

It’s not fair to the athletes in summer swim to act like their times don’t matter. They do. The kids care.

[/quote]

At a USA Swim Meet, you don't necessarily have the number of DQs a summer swim meet might have. Think about how many of those 8&us (and even some older kids) are not legal in breast or fly. 4 stroke and turn officials are important to make sure that those infractions are caught, not necessarily to punish the kid/team, but so that the coaches and team rep know what the kid is doing wrong and they can improve. We do a lot of DQs at B meets and we check off every infraction so the coaches have a better understanding of what the swimmer is doing incorrectly. It's also not that hard for most teams to staff officials...oddly enough it's timers for those long long B meets. [/quote]

Try a two day 8u meet with kids swimming 100im and 100 breast.  Those meets are actually the best ones for new officials to train. For the referee and starter - so many dq’s, so many false starts. For the admin official - so many soft or no touches, so many new parent timers who forget to push the button/stopwatch. And for the computer operator- so many timers and kids stepping on the pads. [/quote]

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