news-record.com

GREENSBORO — The YMCA Bears had a standout performance in the Community Swim Association City Meet this past weekend, but a strange mix-up kept them from claiming a meet record.

On Friday, the YMCA 13-14 girl's 200-yard medley relay posted a meet-record time of 1:58.16. The second-place Friendly Frogs also broke the original record by swimming the relay in 1:58.70.

YMCA's team included 12-year-old Safiyyah Abdullah, a standout swimmer who jumped up an age group. With only 60 athletes, the Bears had a tough time filling some of the relays.

But the YMCA had inadvertently run afoul of the CSA rulebook — in large part thanks to some incorrect advice from a CSA official.

As explained by CSA president Joe Brower, the policy says if teams are short in a relay but have at least two swimmers from that age group, they can bump up younger swimmers to fill the empty spots. But if there are enough age-group swimmers to complete a relay team, then they must swim in that division.

Brower said the Bears — who were short in both the girls 11-12 and 15-18 relays, but had enough swimmers in the 13-14 age group — tried to mix-and-match. They bumped a 13-14 swimmer up to fill the 15-18 relay, and then put 12-year-old Abdullah in the 13-14 relay.

In other words, Abdullah should have gone to the 15-18 relay (if she jumped up at all) because the Bears had enough for the 13-14 age group.

But YMCA coach Karmen Quakenbush said the wording of the rule isn't clear, so she went to an official who incorrectly told her the team's relay plan was OK.

Following the relay, discussion among meet officials and CSA executive committee members, in combination with inquiries from other teams, led to a review. After multiple meetings, it was decided at the end of Saturday's morning session that the best alternative would be to have YMCA's 13-14 and 15-18 relays reswim the race side-by-side after the warm-ups for the Saturday evening session (if they wished to do so).

Those two events were rescored using the YMCA's new times, and the 13-14 team tied for fourth.

Brower said some teams wanted the relays to be disqualified and that such a decision probably would have been made at a USA Swimming event.

"At end of the day, we as an organization, CSA, we were at fault," Brower said. "One of our executive committee members and a meet official didn't give the correct advice."

He also said the rules "probably needed to be a little bit more clear," and that it would be addressed and clarified at upcoming meetings.

A hurdle for the Bears: They had to re-do the race by themselves, and do it before the night's individual events. Brower said they let the two age groups swim at the same time to create a more competitive atmosphere.

Quakenbush thought the situation would have been handled the same no matter what the size of the team, and also said it would be good to finally get the rule cleared up.

"It was just an honest mistake from the official," she said. "And they did, to an extent, what was fair."

Brower and Quakenbush both thought it wouldn't have been fair to make all the other teams re-swim the relay, but the situation was certainly not ideal.

"Again, I feel terrible about the way it unfolded," Brower said. "And I wish it hadn't happened. But I think once it did, and once we had a chance to think through everything that had occurred, we really did, I think, come up with as good a resolution as we could have."

Contact Jesse Baumgartner at 373-7071 or jesse.baumgartner@news-record.com