In advance of next summer’s Olympic Trials, USA-Swimming has released a 19-page document outlining all of the administrative details of the meet. This document, in its detail, appeals most to participants, coaches, officials, and the geekiest of swim geeks, but did give up a few interesting wrinkles that appeal to a broader audience.
10 LANES POSSIBLE FOR PRELIMS
While there’s no confirmation that 10 lanes will be used for the preliminary sessions at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, the option is there for the meet to operate in such a way. According to USA Swimming it will be at the referee’s discretion whether or not 10 lanes will be used during the heats.
The meet will follow a standard format for semifinals and finals, only using eight lanes (this will support the 16 qualified for semifinals and the eight who qualify for finals).
400m FREESTYLE AND 400m IM MAY BE FLIGHTED
Again at the referee’s discretion, the 400m freestyle and 400m IM events might be flighted in order to make the session run faster for the other events. If the meet referee chooses this option, the fastest five heats will be swimming in their regular position in prelims.
The remaining heats will then be swum fastest to slowest at the end of that day’s prelims session.
NO APPAREL OR OTHER ITEMS WITH OLYMPIC RINGS
According to the Amateur Sports Act, any apparel or items that feature the Olympic rings are not allowed at Trials.
$100 PENALTY FOR FALSIFIED TIMES
According to USA Swimming a, “$100 penalty shall be levied against any USA Swimming verification officer who entered such a false or incorrect time(s) in the SWIMS Database.
The most recent scandal involving falsified times was at the 2015 World Championships when the Mexican Swimming Federation entered unprovable times for their athletes.
DISTANCE FREESTYLE ENTRY TIMES
According to the document provided by USA Swimming any athlete who qualifies in either the 800m freestyle (women) or 1500m freestyle (men) will be able to enter at their fastest time or at the event qualifying standard only if they’re entered in two or more events on the day of the distance race.
ENTRY TIMES AND ENTRY FEES
It doesn’t say anything in the document that suggests entering a time slower than your personal best would be any sort of a foul. As long as the time is proven (proof that you swam that time), within the qualifying timeline, and at or faster than the qualifying standard it will be allowed considering there is no rule in the document against it.
It will cost $30.00 for each individual event and $20 per credentialed coach and team staff.
This is the exact same fee that was also used at the 2012 US Olympic Trials in Omaha.
NO TEAM SCORING
There will be no team scoring at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, as compared to non-Olympic year National Championship meets that do offer team scoring.
The 2016 US Olympic Trials will take place June 26th to July 3rd. SwimSwam will have full coverage of the event.
For a full link to the PDF document, click here.
Should be a $10,000.00 fine for entering false times if USA Swimming really cared. A $100.00 fine is basically a free pass to do as one pleases with a slap on the wrist if caught.
I believe that you can be put on the banned coaching list too for providing false times.
You’re right. One can be put on the banned list for doing “anything which is detrimental to the reputation or image of USA Swimming”. A catch all phrase when USA Swimming CHOOSES to go after someone they want to make an example out of. For the most part, even with sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, they do not enforce the code of conduct. If they were serious about following their own rules, the fines would be set to PREVENT the continuous cheating.
I’m sure many people would pay a lot of money plus the $100.00 fine to swim at the trials.
Yep….there are non-American coaches coaching in the US that do this all the time!