Thanks to everyone involved in the Ft. Lauderdale Nationals. I had a great time and met some exceptional people. I especially want to thank Doug Malcolm for the competition in the adjacent lane. It looks like (from USMS data) you have not competed for quite a while and had a great meet! I had not competed for over 20 years when I entered the 2001 Nat's at Santa Clara and have done pretty well for the past few years. Doug exemplifies what our sport should be all about; a true competitor who brings out the best in someone like me who may not have accomplished the standards acheived in Ft. Lauderdale without someone like him next to me. I never got a chance to thank you so I am doing so now. Keep up the good work!
I would also like to congradulate John Blank for being the first male competitor over 45 to break one minute in the 100 yard breaststroke; a great accomplishment! I have never broken a minute in that event and am full of envy.
Lee Rider
Jim (Matysek) - Thanks for the info....it sounds like the championship committee has already thought about this issue at length. I agree with everything you said, but it still would be nice to get back to some of the fun small club team battles that our team (VCM) experienced at Indy and AZ. With many of the larger teams now being "state" teams with teammates who don't even train in the same pool/city/state together, it doesn't bode well for the individual clubs and small teams anymore. The relay records are also another subject with these combined teams, but in the end it's probably better for Masters swimming since it's attracting more swimmers (via recruitment) who may otherwise chose not to compete. I guess if our team wants to jump back into the team competition, we'll have to get bigger and/or join an area/state team.
FYI - I thought about the team ranking issue during the meet, and was initially thinking about tossing out an idea for a new team scoring proposal where the current scoring system would be used along with a "swimmer-weighted" team score (total score divided by the # of swimmers). I was thinking that the team rankings would then be compiled by the sum of their two rankings (i.e., CMS = 1 (total score ranking) + 20? (swimmer-weighted ranking) = 21, while TOC = 4 + 1? = 5, and so forth). The team with the lowest score would be the champion. Interestingly enough, I scored a few of the top 10 teams from last week using this approach, and found that TOC would probably rank first due to their extremely high "swimmer-weighted" scores (men, women & combined were all well above 30, while CMS and many other large teams were in the 15-25 range). A problem with this approach is that it might drive teams to select "elite-only" members n order to increase their swimmer-weighted score. Well it's just an idea.....I'll keep thinking.....it brings up ideas of college football's BCS system.
By the way, Mark really talked up a storm during your races....payback may be necessary.
Jim (Matysek) - Thanks for the info....it sounds like the championship committee has already thought about this issue at length. I agree with everything you said, but it still would be nice to get back to some of the fun small club team battles that our team (VCM) experienced at Indy and AZ. With many of the larger teams now being "state" teams with teammates who don't even train in the same pool/city/state together, it doesn't bode well for the individual clubs and small teams anymore. The relay records are also another subject with these combined teams, but in the end it's probably better for Masters swimming since it's attracting more swimmers (via recruitment) who may otherwise chose not to compete. I guess if our team wants to jump back into the team competition, we'll have to get bigger and/or join an area/state team.
FYI - I thought about the team ranking issue during the meet, and was initially thinking about tossing out an idea for a new team scoring proposal where the current scoring system would be used along with a "swimmer-weighted" team score (total score divided by the # of swimmers). I was thinking that the team rankings would then be compiled by the sum of their two rankings (i.e., CMS = 1 (total score ranking) + 20? (swimmer-weighted ranking) = 21, while TOC = 4 + 1? = 5, and so forth). The team with the lowest score would be the champion. Interestingly enough, I scored a few of the top 10 teams from last week using this approach, and found that TOC would probably rank first due to their extremely high "swimmer-weighted" scores (men, women & combined were all well above 30, while CMS and many other large teams were in the 15-25 range). A problem with this approach is that it might drive teams to select "elite-only" members n order to increase their swimmer-weighted score. Well it's just an idea.....I'll keep thinking.....it brings up ideas of college football's BCS system.
By the way, Mark really talked up a storm during your races....payback may be necessary.
