Some Friends and I had a discussion about safety in pool competitions during dynamic.
How it works most of the time at the moment (out of my point of view):
Usualy a good amount of safetydivers per lane (often two on one lane). Often "normal" swimmers who have to be highly appreciated for their help during comp. but with no detailed background about BO`s and surface protocol and so on.
In a lot of cases those safety use a classic float to make the swimming alongside the athlet more comfortable. Sometiimes that float is also used after surfacing of the athlet as a support that is offered to the athlet.
Now that is were our discussion starts in. A lot of athlets rely on "fixed" installations as lines seperating the lanes or if possible the edge of the pool (often not allowed so that all athlets have the same condition no matter which lane) but some athlets do like to use the float (if offered).
What I saw is that on at least one compettition at the briefing there was the question if the float will be provided after surfacing which was confirmed by the officals but at the comp it was not. So my first conclusion is there is still a lot of improvement possible regarding breifing of the saftey stuff.
the second point distance between safety diver and surfaced athlet in dynamic is to big to be safe often more then 1meter in worse cases more than 2. Third the safety starts support to late in fear of being responsible for DQ (the new rules made it sure harder for safety to judge when the athlet is not only needing some more time te recover but needs serious support to stay on the surface). So my second conlusion would be that fear should be acitlvy taken away from safteys of being responsible for DQ especialy as the attempt still will be valid if a complain is filed and jugded positiv (hope that is correct?) Therefore there is the barrier of the money charged complaint (maybe a possibilty for the safety diver to report doubts about the necessity of his interruption of the athlets attempt)
So how if your feeling about safety during pool dynamic compettitions? What are your ideas? Are you fine as it is now or do you think improvement is possibel/needed?
Robert
How it works most of the time at the moment (out of my point of view):
Usualy a good amount of safetydivers per lane (often two on one lane). Often "normal" swimmers who have to be highly appreciated for their help during comp. but with no detailed background about BO`s and surface protocol and so on.
In a lot of cases those safety use a classic float to make the swimming alongside the athlet more comfortable. Sometiimes that float is also used after surfacing of the athlet as a support that is offered to the athlet.
Now that is were our discussion starts in. A lot of athlets rely on "fixed" installations as lines seperating the lanes or if possible the edge of the pool (often not allowed so that all athlets have the same condition no matter which lane) but some athlets do like to use the float (if offered).
What I saw is that on at least one compettition at the briefing there was the question if the float will be provided after surfacing which was confirmed by the officals but at the comp it was not. So my first conclusion is there is still a lot of improvement possible regarding breifing of the saftey stuff.
the second point distance between safety diver and surfaced athlet in dynamic is to big to be safe often more then 1meter in worse cases more than 2. Third the safety starts support to late in fear of being responsible for DQ (the new rules made it sure harder for safety to judge when the athlet is not only needing some more time te recover but needs serious support to stay on the surface). So my second conlusion would be that fear should be acitlvy taken away from safteys of being responsible for DQ especialy as the attempt still will be valid if a complain is filed and jugded positiv (hope that is correct?) Therefore there is the barrier of the money charged complaint (maybe a possibilty for the safety diver to report doubts about the necessity of his interruption of the athlets attempt)
So how if your feeling about safety during pool dynamic compettitions? What are your ideas? Are you fine as it is now or do you think improvement is possibel/needed?
Robert