An Interesting Thing Happened After Lochte's 200 IM Win at Worlds

Did you happen to see Ryan Lochte's gold medal swim in the 200 IM in Kazan at the World Championships? Well, you likely won't see his technique in the freestyle portion of the IM ever again as FINA ruled it illegal...

Turns out Lochte is faster streamlining on his back so he and his coach devised a plan for him to come off of the breaststroke portion of the IM on his back and swim the first 15 meters underwater while on his back. Of course, there's no question that this is a legal technique in both the Freestyle and Backstroke individual events. But there was some question as to whether the officials at World's would decide that he was swimming backstroke during the freestyle portion of the IM, which would be illegal. He gambled and the call was not made and he won his fourth consecutive World title in the event.

Enter FINA. FINA's rationale is that backstroke is defined by a swimmer traveling lying on his/her back. So, in underwater kicking on his back, Lochte, according to FINA, was technically swimming backstroke for the first 15 meters of his freestyle portion of the IM; a violation of the IM rules which require 4 distinct strokes.

Shouldn't be long before USA Swimming adopts a similar interpretation. Stay tuned.

Would you have considered his swimming underwater on his back for 15 meters as backstroke? 

AMS Swimposium Schedule for Saturday, September 19th

As we all know, the AMS Swimposium is on Saturday, September 19, 2015 at Mt. Lebanon High School. There will be two Officials sessions with a lunch in between.

The session for Stroke & Turn and Chief Judge Officials will be from 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM. The session for Referees, Starters and Administrative Officials will be from 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM. Our discussion will be led by Dan McAllen, currently the USA Swimming VP of Program Operations and former USA Swimming Chair of the Rules & Regulations Committee. It should be a very interesting discussion. Dan is a very good speaker and a great guy.

From 12:30 - 1:30 PM there will be an Officials lunch. This will be a great opportunity to spend some down time for your fellow AMS Officials. The early attendees are encouraged to stay for lunch and the later attendees are encouraged to come early for lunch.

While this meeting is not mandatory, you are strongly encouraged to attend. The balance of the Swimposium agenda has some interesting parts to it for swimmers, parents, meet directors, etc. 

Please RSVP by clicking here. I know it's a Pittsburgh thing to wait until the last minute to commit, but early acknowledgement of your plan to attend would be greatly appreciated. 

You are welcome to attend either or both sessions for Officials. Also, please let us know your plans for the lunch. This will be a very rewarding day so we hope to see you there. See you soon!

Officials Sign-ups for 2015-2016 SC Meets

The 2015-2016 SC season is right in front of us (well, don't get too uppity, you still have time to rest). Our season kicks off, as it always does, with First Splash, hosted by four teams spread over three weekends. And then the mayhem continues for months to come!

Once again, we'll be using Volunteer Spot for our AMS Officials sign ups. Currently, all meets leading up (but not including) the Christmas meet are ready for sign up. The rest of the season will be posted soon. Here's the link to our group page...

http://vols.pt/q28pj3

Sign up early and often. Please sign up at your highest level of certification. So, if you're a Referee, sign up as Referee. If you don't want to be the Referee for the sessions you sign up for, leave that as a comment.

It's important for our meet hosts to know where their deck stands as early as possible so they know where they need to focus. It's a Pittsburgh thing to be fashionably late (or even woefully late). If possible, we'd like to try and break that mold this year to give our meet hosts time to breathe deeply without having to freak out because they have too few officials signed up as their meets approach.

As always, see ya on deck!

AMS Swimposium

AMS will once again be co-sponsoring (with USA Swimming) a Swimposium on September 19, 2015 at Mt. Lebanon High School.

As part of the AMS Swimposium, we will have a mandatory officials meeting with guest speaker Dan McAllen, currently USA Swimming's Program Operations Vice President and immediate past Chair of the USA Swimming Rules & Regulations Committee.

The tentative plan is that Dan will speak to our Stroke & Turn, Chief Judges and Administrative Officials in the morning and our Referees and Starters in the afternoon. We will host a lunch in between. AMS Officials are welcome to attend both sessions, if desired.

Details will be available soon and a sign up sheet will also be available once the particulars are ironed out.

We look forward to seeing you all soon as we prepare to kick off the 2015-2016 Short Course season. Should you have any questions, please contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com or 412-867-6687.

As per the 4/30/15 blog post, it's time to think about recertification of your various AMS Officials positions. Below is a re-post explaining what tests are necessary to recertify by the end of this calendar year...

Every three years, AMS Officials must recertify for the officials positions that they hold. Our current certifications expire at December 31, 2015. The new online tests, based upon the 2015 Rule Book, will be available on the USA Swimming website after May 1, 2015.

If an official certified/recertified for a particular position(s) during 2015, their certification will be automatically renewed to December 31, 2018. Any certification/recertification completed prior to 2015 requires recertification during 2015 in order to extend the expiration to 12/31/18.

In order to recertify, officials at these highest levels of certification must complete the following online tests before 12/31/15...

Referee - A Referee must take the Referee, Starter, and Administrative Official recertification tests. This will also recertify them at the Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn levels. In lieu of the Admin Official test, the Referee can alternatively take the Administrative Referee test.

Starter - A Starter must take the Starter, Timing Judge and Stroke & Turn/Timer tests. In lieu of the Stroke & Turn/Timer test, the Starter can take the Referee recertification test to recertify for both Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn.

Chief Judge - A Chief Judge must take the Referee recertification test. This will also recertify them at the Stroke & Turn level.

Administrative Official - An Admin Official must take the Admin Official recertification test.

Stroke & Turn - A Stroke & Turn official must take the Stroke & Turn/Timer test.
As indicated above, you have until 12/31/2015 to complete the required tests in order to extend your certifications for three years. Should you have any questions, please contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com.

Happy online testing!!

Check Your Officials Sessions Worked!

Be sure you take a few moments to check out your officials sessions worked in the Officials Tracking System (OTS) for the period from September 1, 2014 to today. 

Remember that it is our rule that all AMS Officials whose home clubs are within 60 miles of downtown Pittsburgh must work a minimum of 12 sessions at AMS sanctioned meets by the end of August 2015. This is part of our annual certification process and helps ensure that a) we are adequately staffed on deck at meets throughout the year and b) our officials are proficient through deck experience.

As always, we evaluate individual circumstances on a case by case basis. If you have a legitimate reason why you are not able to complete your minimum required sessions (this would not include "my dog ate my credentials"), please send an email to Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com to make your case. There are plenty of Long Course sessions still in front of us so plenty of time to get caught up.

See ya on deck!

A Great Learning Experience...Again!

There must be something in the air at The Classic hosted annually by JCCS. Four years ago, a very interesting call was reviewed in theory (no call had been made but it was interesting enough that we reviewed the circumstances and options with Referees at the time)

I have often heard that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place because the same place isn't there the second time. Well, that appears to be a false statement as lighting did, in fact, strike twice in the same place, albeit 4 years apart.

So, here's the circumstances...

The Situation: During the 200 Meter Individual Medley, the swimmer completed the butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke portions of the medley without incident. The swimmer turned to begin the freestyle leg. After the turn, the swimmer took a single arm pull followed by a breaststroke kick and then recovered his/her arms forward (one full cycle of breaststroke). At this point, s/he realized that s/he should be swimming freestyle and then swam freestyle for the balance of the leg to finish the race.

The Call: The Stroke Judge recognized that in an individual medley event, freestyle means any style other than butterfly, breaststroke or backstroke. In her thinking, a single cycle was not enough to determine that the swimmer was swimming breaststroke. And so no call was made.

The rule in question relates to 101.5 and 101.6. In 101.6, the rules state that the last fourth of the IM race must be freestyle. In 101.5, freestyle is described as "any style, except that in a medley relay or an individual medley event, freestyle means any style other than butterfly, breaststroke or backstroke".

So, here's the question. Is one cycle of breaststroke enough to determine that the swimmer was swimming breaststroke and, therefore, in violation of Rule 101.5?

Four years ago, we asked our Referees the same question and, interestingly, had a fairly even split among the Referees as to whether the one cycle was adequate to conclude that the swimmer had swum an adequate enough of breaststroke during the freestyle portion of the IM to constitute a disqualification. 

We also ran the question by the then Chair of the USA Swimming Rules & Regulation Committee, Dan McAllen. Dan said, "unfortunately, the answer to this question may be different depending on the Referee. The interpretation of the rule that applies is simply "the swimmer must be swimming in the style of a stroke other than freestyle" for the disqualification call to be made and upheld." For some, "a single breaststroke arm pull and leg kick is definitive. Frankly, while I could defend that position, for me, posing as Referee if I may, it would take more than a single arm pull and leg kick to uphold that call. Remember, the presumption, by rule, is that following a legal touch at the end of the breaststroke leg the athlete is a freestyle swimmer. While it is true that the elements of breaststroke were there, a single stroke is not sufficient to overcome the freestyle presumption in my mind. That first legal breaststroke cycle would get my attention, to be sure, but I would need to see more to decide that the athlete was actually swimming breaststroke. How much more? At least one more legal breaststroke cycle.

If the Stroke & Turn Judge believes that there was an adequate amount of breaststroke swum to determine that the swimmer was swimming breaststroke in violation of the rules, then the call should be made and vetted. Ultimately, the Referee, based upon his or her interpretation and understanding of what happened, will either uphold the call or not.

Weird that this happened again at The Classic 4 years after it last happened at the same meet. I guess we're not due to revisit this until May 2019.

Recertification Required for all Officials Positions

Every three years, AMS Officials must recertify for the officials positions that they hold. Our current certifications expire at December 31, 2015. The new online tests, based upon the 2015 Rule Book, will be available on the USA Swimming website after May 1, 2015.

If an official certified/recertified for a particular position(s) during 2015, their certification will be automatically renewed to December 31, 2018. Any certification/recertification completed prior to 2015 requires recertification during 2015 in order to extend the expiration to 12/31/18.

In order to recertify, officials at these highest levels of certification must complete the following online tests before 12/31/15...

Referee - A Referee must take the Referee, Starter, and Administrative Official recertification tests. This will also recertify them at the Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn levels. In lieu of the Admin Official test, the Referee can alternatively take the Administrative Referee test.

Starter - A Starter must take the Starter, Timing Judge and Stroke & Turn/Timer tests. In lieu of the Stroke & Turn/Timer test, the Starter can take the Referee recertification test to recertify for both Chief Judge and Stroke & Turn.

Chief Judge - A Chief Judge must take the Referee recertification test. This will also recertify them at the Stroke & Turn level.

Administrative Official - An Admin Official must take the Admin Official recertification test.

Stroke & Turn - A Stroke & Turn official must take the Stroke & Turn/Timer test.

As indicated above, you have until 12/31/2015 to complete the required tests in order to extend your certifications for three years. Should you have any questions, please contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com.

AMS Officials Rosters Updated

As of 4/29/15, the AMS Officials rosters have been updated and can be found on the AMS Officials website. Having accurate information about our officials is very important to our meet host clubs in communicating with us about their upcoming meets.

Please verify that your certifications are correct and contact Bob Mermelstein at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com if there are issues.

http://www.amswim-officials.org/TabGeneric.jsp?_tabid_=103253&team=lscamso

Look for new information tomorrow about officials recertification requirements. Yes, it's been three years!

Donna Beyerl Named Jamy Pfister Official of the Year

Our first ever "Jamy Pfister Official of the Year" is Donna Beyerl!

Donna has been an AMS Official for a long time and has worked more sessions than any other official this year. In fact, she worked 20 meets and 70 sessions during the 2014/2015 Short Course season alone! She has mentored/trained many of our officials, is an active member of the AMS Officials Committee and is very deserving of being named the very first awardee.

The Jamy Pfister Official of the Year award was named to honor our very own Jamy Pfister who devoted over 40 years as a swim official. Jamy has mentored many of us in AMS and around the nation over the years and has left her indelible mark on USA Swimming, both regionally and nationally. 

Donna received her award at the AMS Officiathon held on Saturday, April 18, 2015.

Congratulations Donna!