For the second straight week, we’ve seen a miscounting of a 500 free disrupt the winning order.
Last week, it was a high profile swim at a dual meet between Emory and Georgia, one that included one of the top freshmen in the country Matthew Sates in his collegiate debut.
The stakes were much higher in the latest miscount, as it happened at the Mid-South Conference Championships.
The Mid-South Conference is an NAIA conference, and their championship meet is being held this week in Kingsport, Tennessee.
In the 500 free, an official rang the bell for Bethel University (TN) freshman Mikolaj Synowiec. The only problem is that rather than ringing the bell into the 450 yard turn, as is the policy under NCAA rules, the bell was rung into the 400 yard turn.
As Synowiec and Campbellsville’s Sebastian Escobar, who were ranked 1 and 2 at that point, stopped racing given what they thought was the finish of the race, their opponents flipped.
As the spectators and teammates screamed for them to continue, the pair seemed unaware of what was being communicated. Synowiec can be seen hanging on the lane rope, and as the camera pans away and a cap can be seen flying halfway down Escobar’s lane.
The two eventually realize the error and resume their racing, but were unable to catch up to the new leaders. Cumberlands’ Martin Herion won a tight race against his teammate John McDonald, with the two finishing in 4:36.43 and 4:37.60, respectively.
Synowiec, meanwhile, who was about 6 seconds ahead of Herion when he stopped swimming, finished 3rd in 4:40.15, while Escobar wound up 6th in 4:44.88.
The race video, seen below, clearly shows that both counters have counted the race correctly – displaying a 17.
“I can sit here and point fingers to say who to blame but at the end of every single day, I know Mikolaj Synowiec and the other swimmers who stopped did exactly what any other swimmer would do in that situation if the bell was rung for them,” said Bethel coach Alec Meddings. “I hate the circumstance but we just move forward from here. I am confident in that was not going to be the only race we was going to win overall at conference. 400 IM tonight and 1650 on Saturday. Bethel is proud of Mikolaj and knows he will do what he trained for.”
A small Bethel U team finished the first day of competition ranked 4th with 87 points. They had some highs on the day as well – including breaking a school record in the 400 medley relay by more than 18 seconds.
University of the Cumberlands, one of the top NAIA programs in the country, won 5 events on day one and sits in 1st place with 252 points.
SwimSwam has reached out both to the Mid-South Conference, but has not received a response.
Fix this issue – – – allow the lap counters to stand on the sides of the pool or end. Looking up to see the #s at the end of your lane is an unusual disturbance to proper Free body alignment. When I made the “mile” cut for my first Nationals, the counter was easy to see – on the side of the pool (over 50 years ago / when Team USA flat dominated distance swimming in pools). NCAA & others; change the lap-counter rule *** DO WHAT’S BEST FOR ATHLETES! P.S. I stopped @ 450 in race at Florida State. Recovered for the “close” win. Go CANES
I’ve swum over thirty 500 frees. Athletes should watch their counter and know what length they are on. Counting on the bell is a mistake, obviously. Until you see the red card you are not on your last length!
One of the benefits of being partially deaf, in retrospect, is that I never can hear the bell when I’ve got water in my ears, so I’ve always had to go off the count. I’ve seen the bell done wrong at other meets, so I don’t understand why anyone would go just off of that when there are lap counters.
I would have never made this mistake when I was swimming. I always knew that I had at least 100 yards lefts when I heard that bell ringing 🙂
This happened to me when I was 75 in the 1000. The counter fliped the last card 2 laps early. I was so far ahead of the Midwest record that I could have easily re started but no one caught the error until it was too late. At my age nearly every swim is slower. At the next meet 4 months later I could no longer break the record.
Now on long swims I keep swimmimg till someone tells me to stop.
I did that once and they reset the timing console because they thought my still swimming meant I wasn’t done (the referee I wish I had was running the women’s course rather than the men’s).
These miscounts always bring to mind the great Rowdy Gaines commentary of the 2016 NCAA 1650 when he thought Penn’s Chris Swanson, who won, was getting lapped. Even brilliant minds like Rowdy can get the count wrong.
#youhadonejob
I will say though that the camera angle with the scoreboard in the top right is better than 90% of meets I watch. If the NAIA can get it right, how come we see it wrong so often!?
NAIA has nothing to do with this meet… this is the Mid-South Conference…
Plus the NAIA canceled Nationals last year due to the 2021 host not fully committing, even when other hosts were viable options…. So yeah the NAIA doesn’t get much right.
Just being broad as it is a NAIA conference.
A Canadian team or two sometimes show up at our local invitational meets. Their distance kids count the laps themselves. The USA Swimming rules say the swimmers are responsible for swimming the correct distance themselves.
Even as little kids there wasn’t a bell in scm 400 … kids get used to it