SwimClubMeet |
|
SwimClubMeet |
Depending on the meet, the first heat can contain the fastest swimmers or the slowest swimmers. Dual meets are often organized in fastest to slowest seeding. It simplifies the organization of the meets and requires less preparation work than other types of seeding.
Bigger meets usually place the fastest swimmers in the last heats, there are a few different ways they can be organized.
tips_and_updates SCM uses the latter - fastest in the last heat.
When the meet has timed finals, the events are usually organized with regular seeding. Since swimmers only get one shot at swimming that particular event, they're matched with competitors of most similar speed. This means that the fastest swimmers are placed together in the last heats.
The fastest swimmers in a heat always swim in the middle lanes. The slower swimmers in a heat are placed in the outside lanes. This allows swimmers to compete against those closest to their speed.
tips_and_updates SCM uses regular seeding as the default.
When a meet has preliminary heats and finals, the events often have circle seeding. In an eight-lane pool, the 24 fastest swimmers are placed in the last three heats. Regular seeding is still used for earlier heats.
In each of the three heats, the fastest swimmers are in the middle lanes. In the last heat, the top seeded individual is placed in the middle lane: Lane four. In the second to last heat, the second seeded swimmer is also placed in lane four. The third seed is in the third fastest heat in the middle lane as well. Then the pattern wraps around and repeats. The fourth place swimmer is in the last heat next to the top seeded swimmer in lane five and so on.
This way, swimmers in the top three heats get the chance to swim against the fastest swimmers. This gives swimmers the optimal chance to make it into finals or consolation finals since they race the top seeds in preliminaries.
tips_and_updates SCM has this as an option. You also have the option of setting the depth for regular seeding for earlier events.
Sometimes there will be no program for the meet. Instead, heat and lane assignments will be determined at the meet. If the meet is deck seeding, swimmers will check in at the meet. This is usually the case in more casual meets or long-distance events.
At some less organized meets, swimmers will show up and claim a lane. This is usually for meets that are more for fun. Alumni meets and parent races often have deck seeding. Pre-seeding distance events can be problematic. If 50 people sign up for the 1000m and only 20 show up for the race, then many people will be swimming by themselves. This'll also hold up the meet for a really long time —maybe even for hours!
Many meets have deck seeding solely for distance events.
tips_and_updates Deck Seeding isn't an option in SCM. Currently SCM doesn't organize marathons or Swim-A-Thons.
Olympic standards determine which lanes competitors are scattered into. The order for an eight lane pool goes something like this .... 4,5,3,6,2,7,1,8. The algorithm used in SCM will correctly scatter for any sized pool. Even pools with an odd number of lanes.
Each square represents a swimmer. Fastest swimmer is green, intermediate yellow, slowest red. A total of 32 swimmers will require four heats in an eight lane pool.
The illustrate shows that the all top eight fastest swimmers have been placed in heat four. All the slowest swimmers are in the heat one.
Circle seeding is selected.
In this example the seed depth will be set to two. This means the two fastest heats, three and four, will be circle seed.
The heats one and two will use the default seed method.
Note: SwimClubMeet first builds a stack of swimmers, fastest to slowest. Calculates the number of heats and count of swimmers needed. Then it builds heats, fastest to slowest. (Programmatically, circle seeding is top down.)
It very subtle but you can see that there is now a 'spread' of fastest swimmers in heats 3 and 4. Your fastest swimmer is in heat 4, lane 4. the second fastest swimmer in heat 3, lane 4. Think of it as heat 3 and 4 being equal.
For competative swimming, circle seeding uses a depth equal to the number of heats.
When you have many entrants to an event (say four or five heats) you may want to circle seed to improve the racing experience for your top contenders.
It's recommended that you don't exceed a depth of three. The racing experience (at club level) for bottom ranked swimmers isn't improved if you go beyond three.
When creating a 'FINAL' the default seeding is used. This a system default, SCM managed. Your seed settings in options are ignored.
When creating a 'SEMI' or 'QUARTER-FINAL' circle seeding is used. (... again SCM managed). It's depth level is set to the number of heats.