Decided in the last event...twice!
Can't remember the last time that both sides of a co-ed dual meet were decided in the last relay. To say that the meet was exciting was an understatement. There were great races all night long...even the exhibition heats had exciting races.
Here's how close this meet was: There were nine races in the women's meet where the finishers were separated by fewer than 87 one-hundreths of a second, and half of those were decided by three tenths of less. The men's meet had four events decided by four tenths or less, with Jeremy Anderson missing second place in the 1m Diving by 85 hundredths of a point. That's one of three judges throwing an extra half-point on just one of six dives (at a 2.0 DD).
Of the thirteen close finishes, we came out ahead on nine of them. While it would have been wonderful to swing a couple of the other close ones, and win the meet, I'm not complaining. We competed hard against a very good team.
We talk a lot about "winning the close ones." There is scarcely a better illustration that a tenth of a second on a turn or breakout or race plan or start or finish, when you add two or three of those tiny gains together, can turn a loss into a win for the Tommies.