first of all, congrats to the meet directors and all the volunteers on a job well done. so organized and efficient!! very impressive. the only thing i wish someone could explain to me is why the usms champ. committee changed the team scoring from large, medium and small team to clumping everyone in the same category. seems extremely unfair to have what i call "real teams" competing against state mega teams. there is no possibility for "real teams" to ever come close to competing against them. if you are going to give team awards at the end of the meet, is there any way you can do it fairly? our team is extremely proud to have gotten as many team members as we did to go to natls. (most of them for the first time), but unfortunately they were very disillusioned (as was i) with the idea that we would be competing against state teams. as one of the coaches i didn't have an explanation. even though we were very proud of our 7th place finish in men's division, and our 12th place in combined, we were only one of a few "real teams" in the top ten. would appreciate responses. maybe even someone from the champ.committee could explain how they felt this scoring system would be more fair to the majority of swimmers. then i can pass it along to my teammates.. i don't want them to be so disillusioned that they lose interest in attending any future natls. thanks
Mark Gill and others are working to get a bid from San Juan PR for LCN. They recently held the Pan American Masters there; it is a phenomenal pool (very similar to the Atlanta Olympic design), San Juan is great vacation destination, and the local hosts know how to run a FUN meet!
Having swum at the UANA meet in Puerto Rico, I can assure everyone that the pool is very fast - I had my best times there, the people are friendly, the food is good and the wine is...
Interesting idea, take the USMS Championships. Why go all the way out to San Juan, Montreal has great facilities and they are closer, it takes only 5 hours to get to Montreal, but it takes 10 hours to get to San Juan (From San Francisco).
We might be on something, Sheffield, England has good facilities - very nice one 50 meter pool and a diving tank. For all the beer drinking swimmers, they have great pubs near the pool.
Of course this is also Riccione, Italy. Very good Italian food, fine wine. There are thousands of hotel rooms near by. And Riccione is on the Adriatic, so you can have an open water championship. The Italians also know how to run a fun meet and you can drink wine there.
While all those pools are great pools, if you expect to hold championships out side the federation, I would expect to see at the next convention a rules proposal " 104.4.3.1 National Championships will be held in the federation" which is really too bad. Santiago, Chili has a nice facility- they have great food and really good wine and it takes only 18 hours to get there.
michael
Mark Gill and others are working to get a bid from San Juan PR for LCN. They recently held the Pan American Masters there; it is a phenomenal pool (very similar to the Atlanta Olympic design), San Juan is great vacation destination, and the local hosts know how to run a FUN meet!
Having swum at the UANA meet in Puerto Rico, I can assure everyone that the pool is very fast - I had my best times there, the people are friendly, the food is good and the wine is...
Interesting idea, take the USMS Championships. Why go all the way out to San Juan, Montreal has great facilities and they are closer, it takes only 5 hours to get to Montreal, but it takes 10 hours to get to San Juan (From San Francisco).
We might be on something, Sheffield, England has good facilities - very nice one 50 meter pool and a diving tank. For all the beer drinking swimmers, they have great pubs near the pool.
Of course this is also Riccione, Italy. Very good Italian food, fine wine. There are thousands of hotel rooms near by. And Riccione is on the Adriatic, so you can have an open water championship. The Italians also know how to run a fun meet and you can drink wine there.
While all those pools are great pools, if you expect to hold championships out side the federation, I would expect to see at the next convention a rules proposal " 104.4.3.1 National Championships will be held in the federation" which is really too bad. Santiago, Chili has a nice facility- they have great food and really good wine and it takes only 18 hours to get there.
michael
