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
Unfortunately I am not familiar with USS competition, if you care to fill me in on the relevant aspects I can see how it affects my argument.
The issue which I was trying to address is the desire of smaller clubs to be able to compete on a level playing field. One solution is for the small clubs to join together into "super teams". Some people have a problem with this solution as it raises the question of what a team is, witness the whole debate about super teams. The basic flaw is that teams gain advantage by being bigger, and while participation is a goal taking two teams and combining them doesn't actually advance the goal of participation. To start the smaller teams in a state get together to form a larger team that can compete with the bigger clubs, but that leaves the door open for California to enter a state team, which means the smaller states are no longer competitive, so maybe they form a regional team, so California joins with the other west coast states etc. etc. International competition has a clear definition of what constitutes a team, i.e. each country has a team made up of citizens of that country. Clubs used to be the basis of team competition. Blah blah blah, see the super team thread if you want more on this. :)
Relays are a good example of team competition on a level playing field. You have a fixed number of swimmers and while one team may have better swimmers than another the playing field on which those swimmers compete is level. I think they offer a good model for team competition in that small teams can field relay teams that compete on a level playing field, and while a club may place its best swimmers on one relay a club can enter multiple relay teams so there is no pressure to exclude the less elite swimmers from participation as there is with any scheme involving averaging points per swimmer. Yes, statistically the top four swimmers on a 200 person team are probably faster than the top four swimmers on a 20 person team but the two teams of four are competing on a level field.
All I am saying is that if you want to offer small teams an opportunity to compete on a level playing field with large and small teams alike, relay teams provide a better model to build on than the total points competitions. It really isn't that radical a proposition and it isn't an attempt to even out the number of medals, it is just a way to provide a level playing field like in the current individual and relay events.
Unfortunately I am not familiar with USS competition, if you care to fill me in on the relevant aspects I can see how it affects my argument.
The issue which I was trying to address is the desire of smaller clubs to be able to compete on a level playing field. One solution is for the small clubs to join together into "super teams". Some people have a problem with this solution as it raises the question of what a team is, witness the whole debate about super teams. The basic flaw is that teams gain advantage by being bigger, and while participation is a goal taking two teams and combining them doesn't actually advance the goal of participation. To start the smaller teams in a state get together to form a larger team that can compete with the bigger clubs, but that leaves the door open for California to enter a state team, which means the smaller states are no longer competitive, so maybe they form a regional team, so California joins with the other west coast states etc. etc. International competition has a clear definition of what constitutes a team, i.e. each country has a team made up of citizens of that country. Clubs used to be the basis of team competition. Blah blah blah, see the super team thread if you want more on this. :)
Relays are a good example of team competition on a level playing field. You have a fixed number of swimmers and while one team may have better swimmers than another the playing field on which those swimmers compete is level. I think they offer a good model for team competition in that small teams can field relay teams that compete on a level playing field, and while a club may place its best swimmers on one relay a club can enter multiple relay teams so there is no pressure to exclude the less elite swimmers from participation as there is with any scheme involving averaging points per swimmer. Yes, statistically the top four swimmers on a 200 person team are probably faster than the top four swimmers on a 20 person team but the two teams of four are competing on a level field.
All I am saying is that if you want to offer small teams an opportunity to compete on a level playing field with large and small teams alike, relay teams provide a better model to build on than the total points competitions. It really isn't that radical a proposition and it isn't an attempt to even out the number of medals, it is just a way to provide a level playing field like in the current individual and relay events.
