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
It seems to me that there is a problem in terminology at work here. It seems to me that there are two distinct concepts that are quite different but are not being distinguished.
1) All competitors should have an equal probability of winning regardless of ability.
2) Competition should be decided by the abilities of the competitors not by the conditions of competition or equipment or whatever.
When you say that relay competition is an example of an unlevel playing field because Mozambique never wins you are referring to the first concept.
When you talk about swimming being a very level playing field because the conditions of competition are almost identical you are referring to the second concept.
Personally I use "level playing field" to refer to the second concept not the first. For me the relay competition is still on a level playing field because the conditions of competition are still pretty much identical. If I were to race against Michael Phelps the competition would be very uneven but still on a level playing field.
If you had two baseball teams and you allowed one team to field two extra outfielders I would say that you no longer had a level playing field, although it is possible that the smaller team could have better players and actually win.
Perhaps there are some people here that think that teams ought to be able to win regardless of the abilities of their swimmers. That has not been my argument, what I suggested was to add a new competition where a small team could win if it had team members that were faster than the teams fielded by larger teams. It is true that in general larger clubs will have more fast swimmers and are likely to win a lot of these competitions, but at least the small teams will have a level field to play on.
The basic argument is that if two teams can combine into one team and thereby gain a significant advantage in a competition then the meaningfulness of that competition is open to question - it isn't being decided by the abilities of the competitors but by the organization and size of the team. There are valid reasons to reward organization and participation so go ahead and keep the total points competition. If nothing else, providing an additional competition on which small teams could compete on the basis of their swimming ability would lessen the number of proposals to average the total points per swimmer, which we all know is a bad idea for reasons that have been stated several times.
It seems to me that there is a problem in terminology at work here. It seems to me that there are two distinct concepts that are quite different but are not being distinguished.
1) All competitors should have an equal probability of winning regardless of ability.
2) Competition should be decided by the abilities of the competitors not by the conditions of competition or equipment or whatever.
When you say that relay competition is an example of an unlevel playing field because Mozambique never wins you are referring to the first concept.
When you talk about swimming being a very level playing field because the conditions of competition are almost identical you are referring to the second concept.
Personally I use "level playing field" to refer to the second concept not the first. For me the relay competition is still on a level playing field because the conditions of competition are still pretty much identical. If I were to race against Michael Phelps the competition would be very uneven but still on a level playing field.
If you had two baseball teams and you allowed one team to field two extra outfielders I would say that you no longer had a level playing field, although it is possible that the smaller team could have better players and actually win.
Perhaps there are some people here that think that teams ought to be able to win regardless of the abilities of their swimmers. That has not been my argument, what I suggested was to add a new competition where a small team could win if it had team members that were faster than the teams fielded by larger teams. It is true that in general larger clubs will have more fast swimmers and are likely to win a lot of these competitions, but at least the small teams will have a level field to play on.
The basic argument is that if two teams can combine into one team and thereby gain a significant advantage in a competition then the meaningfulness of that competition is open to question - it isn't being decided by the abilities of the competitors but by the organization and size of the team. There are valid reasons to reward organization and participation so go ahead and keep the total points competition. If nothing else, providing an additional competition on which small teams could compete on the basis of their swimming ability would lessen the number of proposals to average the total points per swimmer, which we all know is a bad idea for reasons that have been stated several times.
