How do people feel about teams that cherry pick members from all over the U.S. or even other countries? There were definitely a couple like this at Nationals. It just seems a bit untoward to me.
One cherry-picked older-middle-aged swimmer told me a few months ago that he and another (female) swimmer from his team would be switching allegiances for LC nationals because they wanted to be on (age-appropriate) relays. As they are both east-coasters and were fairly confident that they might not get enough other swimmers to attend (a reasonable assumption), they switched. I don't have a problem with this.
Assuming a certain yellow-clad team is the cherry here, I don't necessarily see them cherry-picking. They have now established themselves as a strong force at both Spring and Summer Nationals, and across all ages and both genders. If a swimmer in a situation like the above example seeks the team out for that reason, is that bad? I don't think so. I would hope that the swimmer exhausted all avenues with their existing club before making that decision.
Also, said team seems to be bringing brand new people to every nationals. I don't see how that is hurting anything.
How do people feel about teams that cherry pick members from all over the U.S. or even other countries? There were definitely a couple like this at Nationals. It just seems a bit untoward to me.
One cherry-picked older-middle-aged swimmer told me a few months ago that he and another (female) swimmer from his team would be switching allegiances for LC nationals because they wanted to be on (age-appropriate) relays. As they are both east-coasters and were fairly confident that they might not get enough other swimmers to attend (a reasonable assumption), they switched. I don't have a problem with this.
Assuming a certain yellow-clad team is the cherry here, I don't necessarily see them cherry-picking. They have now established themselves as a strong force at both Spring and Summer Nationals, and across all ages and both genders. If a swimmer in a situation like the above example seeks the team out for that reason, is that bad? I don't think so. I would hope that the swimmer exhausted all avenues with their existing club before making that decision.
Also, said team seems to be bringing brand new people to every nationals. I don't see how that is hurting anything.
