The Autumn Short Course Meter Meet

by Jerry Clark, meet director

The third Autumn Short Course Meter meet took place in Charlotte on Sunday October 28, 2012. The meet, formerly a two day meet, was squeezed into one day due to lack of pool availability on Saturday the 27^th. In several ways this was beneficial, for there were plenty of warm up lanes and lots of parking spaces, which sometimes is not the case on Saturdays of two day meets.

Attendance was fairly low with 69 swimmers signed up, but the DNS rate was also low – only two people scratched the entire meet. We are very fortunate to have a wonderful crew doing the officiating and operating the Meet Manager system, plus having the Queen City Dolphin swim team (and some their parents) doing the timing. We provide two full year scholarships to the Dolphin team in return for their assistance at our meets, which is truly a win-win situation.

Wow, did the swimmers crank things up right from the get-go! The 1500 had close completion and fast times. Our meet referee Marty Fehr eased the meet along in order to allow contestants a bit more time between events, but it appears that the swimmers were ready for action as a total of 30 new North Carolina Masters Swimming records were set. One of those was a FINA world record by Mitch Mitchell in the men’s 100 back. Eight Dixie Zone records (one being Mitch’s 100 back swim) were also set. The short course meters season, October 1 – December 31, is often overlooked by many masters swimmers, but not those interested in Top 10 times and a good opportunity to break some records.

Here are the names and age groups of the people who broke 30 NCMS records:

* = a new Dixie zone record; ** = a USMS national record; *** = a FINA world record

Kevin Happ (18-24) 50m back

Catherine Old (35-39) 100m back

Jeff Murray (40-44) 400m free

Todd Pletcher (40-44) 1500m

Todd Torres (40-44) 50m breast*, 100m breast*

Bill Davis (45-49) 1500m

Frances McEachran (50-54) 50m fly, 50m back, 100m back

Jon Klein (55 – 59) 100m free, 200m free

George Coxhead (60-64) 50m fly, 200m fly, 100m IM, 200m IM

Cheryl Murray (60-64) 100m fly, 200m fly, 100m IM, 200m IM*

Jerry Clark (75-79) 200m free

Sally Newell (75-79) 100m free, 100m back, 50m breast*, 100m breast*, 100m IM

Mitch Mitchell (80-84) 50m fly*, 50m back*, 100m back***, 200 back*

For your information, one meter = 3.37 feet or put another way, one meter = 39.370 inches. We know one yard = 36.00 inches, so for loose estimating, one can say that a meter is roughly 10% more than a yard. In turn, this means one might say that a 50m event is approximately 55 yards and a 100m event is approximately 110 yards. However, and especially so in long course meets, some people think it is more common for the swim times in a meters course to be roughly 15% slower (rather than 10%) than short course yards times. How do your times compare percentage-wise?

Thanks to all the swimmers who entered the SCM meet, it was a fun day.