OK, it may be over a year away but why not start a thread on 2011 Short Course (Spring) Nationals? This meet will be held at the newly-renovated Kino Aquatics Center in Mesa, which is just east of Phoenix. So go ahead and pipe in, I'm sure we will get some good conversation flowing.
Maybe it's logistically too hard, but it would be nice to see open water events at each nationals as I don't really want to travel separately to Lake Placid, Ft. Myers, Indiana, Ogallala, or wherever the open water championships happen to reside. I'm sure in many cases you could farm out all the work of organization and volunteering to the local open water gurus (in this case DCB). It would certainly would improve the quality of swimmers at the events (outcome may be the same...Erwin for the win).
Open Water Nationals and Pool Nationals are both bid on two years in advance of their respective events. Typically pool Nationals are selected just prior to the fall convention two years in advance, and Open Water Nationals are selected a month later at convention. It sounds good in theory to combine the two events, but each event has its own set of narrow requirements to satisfy in order to host. Open Water Nationals has a bidding area map where bids are supposed to come from certain parts of the country for certain open water championship distances (page 64 of the 2010 rulebook). Pool Nationals doesn't have the same strict geographic requirement, but the Championship Committee is charged with moving the meet around as much as possible. So if a host is able to bid for both and can meet these requirements, then great. I'm quite sure a bidder would receive strong consideration from USMS if they can host both. I think we are fortunate Mesa has an open water opportunity the same weekend as Nationals so swimmers can make a choice to support one or both. But making them both National Championship events would have had to have been developed in the summer of 2009.
Maybe it's logistically too hard, but it would be nice to see open water events at each nationals as I don't really want to travel separately to Lake Placid, Ft. Myers, Indiana, Ogallala, or wherever the open water championships happen to reside. I'm sure in many cases you could farm out all the work of organization and volunteering to the local open water gurus (in this case DCB). It would certainly would improve the quality of swimmers at the events (outcome may be the same...Erwin for the win).
Open Water Nationals and Pool Nationals are both bid on two years in advance of their respective events. Typically pool Nationals are selected just prior to the fall convention two years in advance, and Open Water Nationals are selected a month later at convention. It sounds good in theory to combine the two events, but each event has its own set of narrow requirements to satisfy in order to host. Open Water Nationals has a bidding area map where bids are supposed to come from certain parts of the country for certain open water championship distances (page 64 of the 2010 rulebook). Pool Nationals doesn't have the same strict geographic requirement, but the Championship Committee is charged with moving the meet around as much as possible. So if a host is able to bid for both and can meet these requirements, then great. I'm quite sure a bidder would receive strong consideration from USMS if they can host both. I think we are fortunate Mesa has an open water opportunity the same weekend as Nationals so swimmers can make a choice to support one or both. But making them both National Championship events would have had to have been developed in the summer of 2009.
