It is obvious that the new team scoring rules for National Championships has not achieved the purposes for which it was designed. At 2009 LC Nationals, many relatively small teams were classified as "regional teams" because their LMSC is so small that they all compete together at Nationals (ie., MOVY with 25 members), and many huge teams were not classified as "regional" teams because there were multiple teams in their LMSC (ie., IndySwimfit with 125 members). If the intent of the new rule was to prevent large teams from overpowering small teams in team scoring, the current rule has produced a ridiculous result.
I don't know why USMS abandoned the concept of Large Team/Small Team scoring years ago, but this concept would seem to work much more equitably. Some might argue that it is difficult to draw the line between large and small teams, but I think it becomes pretty obvious if you look at the Team Rosters from this year's meet. If the Championship Committee made this determination prior to each Nationals after the entries closed, which is the way they used to do it, if I remember correctly, we would minimize the potential problems with setting an arbitrary immutable limit for all Nationals.
If the intent of the new rule was to prevent large teams from overpowering small teams in team scoring, the current rule has produced a ridiculous result.
The rule was changed so that "Regional Teams" who can pull participants from their entire LMSC - a pool of thousands of swimmers in some cases - aren't competing against "Club Teams" who can only pull participants from only one team.
What happens every Nationals is that the host club and the host LMSC's teams ALWAYS have a lot of people because it is easy to just show up and swim - and that gives them a huge advantage against other clubs, especially in relays. That is a fact of life, and really, the only way to beat the hosts is to bring as many people.
I know that this setup doesn't always work out perfectly, but a lot of the way the teams break down depends on the location of Nationals - and any team's placement can vary from meet to meet. For a regional team from a smaller LMSC like MOVY, I understand your gripe - but let's face it, even with Large/Small scoring, there are still going to be plenty of dissatisfied folks.
If the intent of the new rule was to prevent large teams from overpowering small teams in team scoring, the current rule has produced a ridiculous result.
The rule was changed so that "Regional Teams" who can pull participants from their entire LMSC - a pool of thousands of swimmers in some cases - aren't competing against "Club Teams" who can only pull participants from only one team.
What happens every Nationals is that the host club and the host LMSC's teams ALWAYS have a lot of people because it is easy to just show up and swim - and that gives them a huge advantage against other clubs, especially in relays. That is a fact of life, and really, the only way to beat the hosts is to bring as many people.
I know that this setup doesn't always work out perfectly, but a lot of the way the teams break down depends on the location of Nationals - and any team's placement can vary from meet to meet. For a regional team from a smaller LMSC like MOVY, I understand your gripe - but let's face it, even with Large/Small scoring, there are still going to be plenty of dissatisfied folks.
