Cut the Standard-Setter

Standing tall by the pool deck is Cut, a long-legged crane in a referee's cap, a whistle round his neck and a slender horizontal bar he holds level as a ruler. Cut is the keeper of the qualifying cut — the time you must beat to earn your lane at the big meet. He is strict, but never unkind: the line is the same for everyone.

A young swimmer checked her time against the cut and got confused. "The cut is 1:10. I swam 1:12. But bigger numbers are usually better — did I make it?" Cut lowered his bar gently. "In swimming, remember, smaller time is faster," he said. "So the cut is a ceiling, not a floor. You qualify only if your time is less than or equal to the cut. Your 1:12 is bigger than 1:10 — which means slower — so it's just over the line, this time."

He wrote it as an inequality: your time ≤ 1:10 qualifies. "See the direction? At or under the line. 1:10 exactly? You're in. 1:09? Comfortably in. 1:11? Just out — by one second." He never made her feel bad about the near-miss. "Two seconds over isn't failure," he said. "It's a target. Now you know exactly how much to find."

Say it with Cut, out loud: "Your time must fall at or under the line — meet the cut, and the lane is thine."