SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers to weigh in on the ISL’s experimental new 800 free format:
RESULTS
Question: Should the ISL add an 800 free with points given at the 100, 200, and 800 marks?
- Yes, it’s a great addition – 47.6%
- No, too complicated – 31.7%
- No, not viewer-friendly enough – 13.5%
- Don’t know – 7.2%
Almost half of voters considered the experimental 800 free a “great addition” to the ISL’s event lineup. When we created the poll, the format was still in the works – it wound up featuring points awarded at the 100-, 400-, and 800-marks, not the 100-, 200-, and 800-marks as listed in our poll question.
You can read about the ISL’s 800 free test event here. It featured two swimmers, Mykhailo Romanchuk and Henrik Christiansen, going under the European record. And two other swimmers, Felix Auboeck and Zane Grothe, going after the front half of the race to pile up early checkpoint scores.
31.7% of readers were concerned about the complicated nature of scoring. That’s still a hurdle, as the test event itself featured some complex scoring wrinkles. Swimmers who get jackpotted at the finish give up the points they won at the earlier checkpoints – that’s a bit of a competitive necessity to keep teams from entering a sprinter in one lane to grab early checkpoints with big jackpots, but it also creates a pretty complicated scoring system for many fans to follow.
On the other hand, only 13.5% said the race wouldn’t be friendly enough to spectators. That’s one of the major hurdles for the ISL, which has packed its event lineups into tight two-hour sessions that work well for TV broadcasts. Adding an 800 for men and women would add at least 20 minutes to each meet, and that clashes with the ISL’s clear priority of drawing in spectators and conforming to television broadcast needs.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters to pick the best of the 7 world record swims in the ISL’s 2020 season:
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The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
Take out the 5 minute break between every second event and you can fit the 800 in without issue.
I agree, but they might need some of those breaks for commercials, have to bring money in show how.
I think the breaks are so multi event swimmers don’t pass out
Only Dressel can manage the schedule without the breaks.
Broadcasters aren’t gonna like the sessions being any longer than they already are and the existing events are more appealing than an 800.
You’re right. They’ll probably use the race to interview someone and have a split screen, or directly go to commercial. They already did that for the 400 events
Going by the downvotes most people here would prefer an 800 over one or more events already in the program.
This is probably true.
I would prefer an 800+ event over any of the mixed relays.
But this website probably isn’t reflective of the broader market ISL needs to attempt to market itself too.
There’s only 1 mixed relay and it takes less than a 1/4 of the time it’ll take for 2 800s.
Yeah you’re right. I was unsure if there was a mixed free relay. I haven’t watched any ISL meets live in full due to the time they are on (usually between midnight and 4 am), I skip through the meets the next day to watch events I am interested in.
I understand the reasons why they wouldn’t do 800s, I was just commenting on what I personally would prefer, which is what we were talking about.
There is a mixed free relay and no mixed medley relay. I’m Australian too but I watch full replays cos I have a lot of time on my hands (unable to work).
That’s a big time facepalm for me then haha. I thought they had mixed medley for sure given it is the mixed relay Olympic event. That’s why I have confused myself obviously.
Yeah fair call. I probably would if I wasn’t working also. Or if the point races were more competitive frankly. Given the lopsided scores I find it hard to be interested in certain events, which is a shame because you can only imagine how someone who doesnt particularly like swimming feels about it (if they knew it was on i suppose).
98% of people have not seen a video of ISL’s experimental 800 free … so let’s watch it and then re-do the poll. Where’s a video???
yeah absolutely, instead of explaining it in 24326 lines like ISL do on facebook, a video is enough to see if it’s interesting or not
I just did an exhaustive search with no success. If ISL doesn’t make it easily & readily available for viewing by us die-hard swimming fans, then how could they ever expect the public to get word of mouth from us about how cool (or not) it is? A write-up just doesn’t cut it.
Like the 800 but not the distances where they offered points unless you want to split the field, some that go for the early points and some that go for the later points.
I rather see points at 200, 400, 800.
When it comes to the relays and events to support as many different swimmers as possible I think the 4*100 relays are better then the 4*50 relays.
I can agree that something needs to be different if you are going to add more events so that the total time stays at 2 hours.
One change to the program could be to speed up the skins, ex. swim round 1 for women followed by round 1 for men… Read more »
If they want to have more teams in the ISL they need to access pool of distance swimmers. Logical step for me
We should be adding 4×50 relays
I like the idea but with the program they have right now it perfectly fits into 2 hours. Or maybe they could have certain meets have different events? Like one more focused on 50’s and one with the longer events like the 1500, 800 and heck maybe 4 x 200 medley and freestyle relays.
Too many 4×100 relays, let’s stick to the mixed one and add a 4×50.
And it’s only my opinion, no need to hate me for that… but 400 is already painfully long to watch, unless they’re making it an elimination 400 or something it’s just boring!!
And bring back the super suits!! Let’s make it REEEALLY different, don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of it and support the ISL but it’s still just looking like a fancy World Cup.
No to the suits! Fancy World Cup? I don’t think you have ever seen a swimming World Cup if you say that
I’ve swam a handful of those myself
But then you for sure didn’t swim in the ISL
👀… Not sure how you can be so sure LOL
I think it might have a big difference when and where you swam the world cup.
Give me a meet with 25s! Or 4×25 relay! I’m dead serious that would be so much fun. Like a preseason meet or something.
Any video? Chances are that few of us even saw it.
I think it should be an elimination 800.
Agreed that’s exciting, they’re really fun when in the track, but how’re they don’t in the pool?
I like cutting 8th at the 200, 7th at the 300, 6th at the 400, 5th at the 500, 4th at the 600 and 3rd at the 700. Maybe not cut the 3rd person or cut 2 at a time at 200, 400, or 600. If my little caveman brain can come up with that I’m pretty sure ISL can come up with something (but not paychecks apparently. Couldn’t help it sorry).