COLLEGE STATION, Texas, November 21. TEXAS A&M senior Triin Aljand (Tallinn, Estonia) lit the Student Rec Center Natatorium pool on fire on Friday night with what was thought to be the fastest 50-yard freestyle in NCAA history on the first of three days of action at the Art Adamson Invitational.
Aljand, who had never cleared the 22-second barrier before in her career, smoked her way to an NCAA record time of 21.61, supposedly breaking the mark of 21.63 set by Kara Lynn Joyce of Georgia at the 2006 NCAA Championships. Aljand's previous lifetime best was 22.02 seconds.
"I didn't know what time I went because the flags were in the way of the scoreboard," Aljand said. "I looked over at the deck at the girls on the team and they were going crazy. When I finally heard, I couldn't believe it."
Unfortunately, after an official measurement done by the Strong Surveying company at the conclusion of the day's events, the pool was found to be just over one inch short. The very same company measured the pool on Wednesday and it was measured at 75 feet ½ inch. For the pool to be regulation size, it must be no less than 75 feet exactly. Friday night's measurement was revealed to be 74 feet 10 and 7/8 inches.
This is the second time in the past year that Texas A&M has had an issue with a short pool. Earlier this summer, the Texas Senior Circuit contest provided some fast times including Olympic Trials cuts. But, the pool wound up being short.
Click here for more information on the previous short pool issue.
Special thanks to Texas A&M for contributing to this report.
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November 21, 2008 Well I'm so stoked college swimmers get to put up with A&M's pool issues at NCAAs this year! Woohoo! Submitted by: fastfins
November 22, 2008 wow for such a strong engineering school, they really need to get this fixed. their draw for hosting meets is going to drop significantly. i mean just think if you're a meet organizer and you have to pick a venue, why would you pick one where swimmers' hard earned times may get erased? they need to fix this soon and prove that its fixed, or else it will just become a nice practice pool.... Submitted by: lightbulb12
November 22, 2008 I guess its true. It takes two Aggies to change a light bulb. One to hold the bulb and the other to rotate the chair! Submitted by: carlos.iguess
November 23, 2008 Fix it fast! Women's NCAA's is scheduled there in 2009! Submitted by: Arizona Swim Mom
November 23, 2008 Correct me if I am wrong. I thought 25 yds was 75 feet exactly. How did the pool get measured long on Wed. and then short later on? So they got in wrong twice?
It doesn't take a genius to hire another company. Or maybe put a physical mark somehow where the wall always needs to go. Think how many times races were swum and times missed when the pool was long by an inch.
Maybe they really had members of the football team do the measuring. C'mon people. Have some pride. Submitted by: swimmcatt1
November 23, 2008 Being 1 1/8" short actually computes to slightly less than 21.63, depending on the model used. Still its Fast! Hope she can do it again. Submitted by: carlos.iguess
November 29, 2008 I helped run a masters meet in a pool used by a major college team who will remain unnamed. Before the meet, one of the officials measured all the lanes with a tape measure and announced that we couldn't use the end lane because it was a little short. The maintenance crew pushed and tugged at the bulkhead but to no avail.
Fortunately no championship meets are ever held in this pool. Submitted by: flutterby
November 30, 2008 how is it that only one lane is short but the rest are regulation length? Submitted by: lightbulb12
December 1, 2008 The bulkhead was not parallel to the end of the pool. Submitted by: flutterby
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