Heat Seeding

[aspiadas]

A question for you lot in the UK. How do most meets work the heat seeding these days over there ? Do you swim with your own age group or is it seeded with the fastest swimmers swimming the last heat regardless of age ?

[Chris]

It's all about the times (well, at National champs anyway).

You could be a 19-year old up against a 90-year old!!!

[Steve]

This weekend in Manchester I think the final heat of each event was spearheaded

[NotVeryFast]

This is one of my gripes about Masters swimming - I'd much prefer to be racing against people in my own age group and directly competing for placings. I can see how it's all about the practicalities of scheduling, but it will never change the fact that I want to be in the lane next to the person I have to beat.

I will add that relays generally ARE organised with the same age groups in the same race rather than sorting them all by time. Also, the only meet I've ever been to, as far as I can recall, that didn't have spearheaded final heats, is the ASAs at Sheffield.

[Big Nev]

Graham Pearson and I collude and enter the same times in the Breaststroke. As we are the fastest 2 in our age group by a wee bit we have a bit of a race against each other this way.

I agree with NVF would be nice to swim against your own age group though

[Verity]

Hi Guys

It would be great to seed in age groups but we don't really have the volume of swimmers, certainly not for the GB's, it's a bit better for the ASA's but still in the distance stuff the numbers in some events are few and far between. A big plus for a lot of people is the fact that they are seeded against peolple with similar entry times. I reckon if you want a race then Big Nev and Sumo (and Bill Price when he's around) have the right idea a bit of collusion goes a long way.

We do try and spearhead the last heat.

V

[aspiadas]

Thanks for the answers everyone. Most meets here do seed within age groups but the the system they use is somewhat naff. For instance if only one person in an age group enters the meet, they would be shoved in with other age groups without any hindsight as to the time entered...usually and quite often means swimming against guys much slower, say 40 or so seconds over 200 metres.. hardly motivating ... but on the other hand it makes one look pretty outstanding ;)

BTW... congratulations to all you record breakers at the Brits in Manchester :)

[adamlelean]

This is one of my gripes about Masters swimming - I'd much prefer to be racing against people in my own age group and directly competing for placings. I can see how it's all about the practicalities of scheduling, but it will never change the fact that I want to be in the lane next to the person I have to beat.

I will add that relays generally ARE organised with the same age groups in the same race rather than sorting them all by time.
I personally prefer racing people that are around the time I have entered. It can be just as much fun racing against some-one in a different age group, who you battle against regularly, rather than someone in your own agegroup.
NVF you said in another thread someone from Crystal Palace in your age group was 30 sec faster than you. Do you really want to race next to someone who will be 30 sec ahead. Is it fair making them race against someone 30 sec slower.
Not to mention the increase in time it take the gala to run.

At the worlds in Sheffield I'm certain races were in age groups. I seem to remember that Fina rules say thats the way things should be. Even at World championships they tend to ignore this on longer (800m) races.

[Odie]

I have to agree with Adam here - I would much rather compete against those of a similar standard to myself. However, having just missed out on a gold by 1 second to a swimmer in the following heat I feel that had we swum together I would have known what to aim for and the results may have differed - and it would have been a good race!

[NotVeryFast]

I personally prefer racing people that are around the time I have entered. It can be just as much fun racing against some-one in a different age group, who you battle against regularly, rather than someone in your own agegroup.
NVF you said in another thread someone from Crystal Palace in your age group was 30 sec faster than you. Do you really want to race next to someone who will be 30 sec ahead. Is it fair making them race against someone 30 sec slower.
Not to mention the increase in time it take the gala to run.
That swimmer was 25m ahead of everyone else in the pool at Crystal Palace, so he was never going to have anyone to race against, and wouldn't have if he'd been at the GBs either. I agree with you - I want to race against people of similar standard to myself, and there would be no benefit to me from being in the lane next to someone so much faster than me, but suppose there are 16 people who have entered 4:55 to 5:05 in the 400 free, and 6 are in my age group. I'd prefer it if small differences in entry time could be ignored, and we could all be in lanes next to each other. There was less than 2 seconds between gold and bronze in the 400 in my age group, it would have been very reasonable for us to race directly against each other, but two of us were at opposite sides of the pool in one race and one was in another heat. What could be done is to rearrange swimmers slightly to try to put people together in the same age group, but set an upper limit of a few % on how far you move people away from their entry time. Obviously software would be needed to automate it - I'm not suggesting a person should spend loads of time doing this!

[400IMer]

Have seen variations on the theme. At one gala they reversed it so the fastest heat was first which meant no-one could dos the heats. Also have seen cyclical seeding for the final 3 heats - not sure quite how i felt about that one.

[Dunc]

What could be done is to rearrange swimmers slightly to try to put people together in the same age group, but set an upper limit of a few % on how far you move people away from their entry time.

I believe that the previous Guernsey meet organiser, John Eyre, used to do exactly that.

Both the Europeans and the Worlds run almost all their events in age group bands. Depending on numbers, the slower swimmers in an age band are mixed in with other age bands in a 'repechage' of similar times. This is to make best use of the time and avoid empty lanes.

The only exception to the age banding rule is the 800m, this is swum on entry time, regardless of age.
The French adopt the same pattern, unlike us Brits.

It's also a pain to be in the penultimate heat of an 800m which is almost always swum two to a lane and never spearheaded.

[mike_lamb]

For Basingstoke Masters I try to seed the fastest 6 in each age group (for age groups where there at least 6 entries). This has been getting more difficult in recent years because of changing age distribution in entries (fewer in younger age groups and more in older groups).

[aspiadas]

Sometimes I think it would be a good idea for seeding purposes to group the swimmers into 10 year age groups rather than 5... 20-29, 30-39 etc

[Spidey]

I have been fortunate to swim in both World and European Masters Championships, and even the Basingstoke sprint meet in the past - it may have changed. At these events they put the fastest from each age group (depending on lane numbers) together. So for example in my age group there were actually 3 heats of the same age group, the fastest swimming in the last heat as we see in all other competitions. Where there were insufficient to make a full fourth heat, they were then mixed together with other age group swimmers who did not make a full heat, but with similar times. Hope this made sense, it did to me.