Swimming against your competion

I am not usually one to complain about swim meets, since I appreciate all the hard work that goes in to putting one on.... And I fully understand that this is the largest LCM Nationals in the history of Masters Swimming.... But really... Not being able to swim against your competition in the 200's??? This is not a local meet. This is the Nationals. The ONLY time I get to swim against my own age group. There needs to be a better solution. One observation I had about the Omaha Nationals was that a swimmer (in the 200s) could break a world record, or national record, or break into the world top ten and get 3rd or worse in his/her heat. This diminishes the accomplishment of this swimmer as it is not apparent to the audience how he/she is dominate in their age group. Suggestion - for the 200s - have 1 elite heat of the top 8 seeds in each age group/gender followed by the remaining swimmers seeded by time. I know this would lengthen the meet but I don't think it would be considerable.

I am not usually one to complain about swim meets, since I appreciate all the hard work that goes in to putting one on.... And I fully understand that this is the largest LCM Nationals in the history of Masters Swimming.... But really... Not being able to swim against your competition in the 200's??? This is not a local meet. This is the Nationals. The ONLY time I get to swim against my own age group. There needs to be a better solution. One observation I had about the Omaha Nationals was that a swimmer (in the 200s) could break a world record, or national record, or break into the world top ten and get 3rd or worse in his/her heat. This diminishes the accomplishment of this swimmer as it is not apparent to the audience how he/she is dominate in their age group. Suggestion - for the 200s - have 1 elite heat of the top 8 seeds in each age group/gender followed by the remaining swimmers seeded by time. I know this would lengthen the meet but I don't think it would be considerable.