Swimming at the Aquatics LEN European Championships 2020

[Vektor 3,326]

5 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Swimming will never get rid of this completely absurd rule of allowing more than two competitors per country per event to start the heats, but only two to go through to the next round, right? Again, now we've got the women's 100m breaststroke where this dumb rule means we will miss literally one of the three/four best athletes in the semis because of having the same flag as two others who were faster.

Well, the other option is to only have 2 swimmers per nation in the heats, because there's no way they will ever allow more than two per nations in the SF. Not sure which system is better for the swimmers. 

[heywoodu 15,135]

1 minute ago, phelps said:

luckily it's only a European rule...

 

unfortunately, this is the European championship...

Huh, I always thought it was the same at world championships as well  

[phelps 7,674]

Just now, Vektor said:

Well, the other option is to only have 2 swimmers per nation in the heats, because there's no way they will ever allow more two per nations in the SF. Not sure which system is better for the swimmers. 

which is the normal rule in every other event outside the EChs...

 

imho, this rule makes the EChs even more a 2nd tier event, as it's obvious that it's done to help the 2nd tier swimmers to gain some international experience, which they wouldn't get if the rules were the same of the other major competitions...

[heywoodu 15,135]

4 minutes ago, Vektor said:

Well, the other option is to only have 2 swimmers per nation in the heats, because there's no way they will ever allow more than two per nations in the SF. Not sure which system is better for the swimmers. 

That is the issue.

 

There are two options:

 

1. Only allow two swimmers to start per nation per event, period.

2. Allow X swimmers to start per nation per event (be that 2, 3, whatever), and then also allow X swimmers in the next round, having restrictions based only on performance instead of nationalities.

 

Not talking about how unrealistic they are, because it won't change anyway, but this system just sucks. It has no winners, who wants to see the 3rd fastest athlete be eliminated? That's just...batshit crazy.

[phelps 7,674]

the problem of the point no.2 is just one (and it's the same in some track*** & field events)...there's too much of a risk to see some events with at least 5/6 guys from the same Nation* (and just 2 Countries** represented) in the final act...

 

* = USA

** = USA & AUS

 

***= change USA and AUS with KEN and ETH

[heywoodu 15,135]

11 minutes ago, phelps said:

the problem of the point no.2 is just one (and it's the same in some track*** & field events)...there's too much of a risk to see some events with at least 5/6 guys from the same Nation* (and just 2 Countries** represented) in the final act...

 

* = USA

** = USA & AUS

 

***= change USA and AUS with KEN and ETH

So limit it to a lower maximum number of starters in the event. Have a maximum of three athletes to start an event for all I care, the main point is that it's ridiculous to have a higher number of athletes per nation start and then not let athletes - who already are allowed to start in the first place - go to the next round just because two athletes of the same country were faster.

[phelps 7,674]

1 minute ago, heywoodu said:

So limit it to a lower maximum number of starters in the event. Have a maximum of three athletes to start an event for all I care, the main point is that it's ridiculous to have a higher number of athletes per nation start and then not let athletes - who already are allowed to start in the first place - go to the next round just because two athletes of the same country were faster.

I agree...and tbh, I'm OK with the current 2-athlete rule (I'd adopt it also for Track & Field among other sports)...I don't like the idea of too many clean sweeps of the podium places (actually, I hate all the events where the top 3 are from the same Nation/team)...

[Agger 1,662]

Danish record!  

[heywoodu 15,135]

13 minutes ago, phelps said:

I agree...and tbh, I'm OK with the current 2-athlete rule (I'd adopt it also for Track & Field among other sports)...I don't like the idea of too many clean sweeps of the podium places (actually, I hate all the events where the top 3 are from the same Nation/team)...

Still not as bad as a tie for Olympic gold resulting in having nobody who is 'the champion'  

 

Two or three athletes is both fine, it's not like with three athletes we will suddenly see 20 clean sweeps per tournament in swimming. As long as the best X go through to the next round, where X is simply the number of available spots in the next round (so either 16 or 8), without more internal restrictions.

[dodge 1,024]

Gymnastics is another sport that has a similar rule. All the team can attempt to qualify but only 2 per nation can advance to the apparatus finals

 

The swimming European championships is a pretty odd event though.