2021 USMS Long Course National Championship

LCM Nationals and Top Ten

Times from THIS year's LCM Nationals will currently count for NEXT year's Top 10 swims, due to the dates of the Nationals being moved back to just 10 days after the Top 10 deadline of Sept. 30th. And for those swims at this year's Nationals that also make FINA top 10, those same times will count for THIS year's FINA top 10 since FINA requires swims from the Calendar year.
Confusing? There is a Rule Proposal (R-11) to change the deadline just this year to include the LCM Nationals for this year's USMS Top 10.

- If the rule is passed at Convention (in Sept.), then both the USMS top 10 and FINA top 10 will be in synch.

- If the rule is NOT passed at Convention, then 2021 USMS LCM Top 10 will contain no swims from Nationals and the 2022 LCM Top 10 will contain results from both the 2021 LCM Nationals and the 2022 LCM Nationals.
    Possible consequences:

- a swim from THIS year's LCM Nats could be in THIS year's FINA top 10, but not in the USMS top 10, so FINA and the USMS top 10s are not in synch.
- a swimmer with a fast time in THIS year's Nats and a slower time in NEXT year's Nats could appear in NEXT year's USMS Top 10 with the fast time from 2021 but in the FINA 2022 Top 10, with the slower time done in 2022. Not in synch.
- a swimmer with a slower time in THIS year's Nats and a faster time in NEXT year's Nats could appear in NEXT year's USMS Top 10 with the fast time from this year, and in NEXT year's FINA Top 10, but the swimmer's slower time from THIS year which would have made THIS year's USMS top 10, will never be given credit in a USMS top 10 for that time done THIS year at Nats.

Is it important to be aligned with FINA for LCM Top 10?
Is it better to have our upcoming USMS Nationals count for the 2021 or for 2022 USMS LCM Top 10?

USMS didn't change any rules regarding TT submissions for the even crazier year of 2020, where many LCM events had one or no submissions, and only a handful of people who swam an early LCM meet in February had their times count.  Therefore, why bother debating making a special change for 2021-2022?  Just keep it the same.  Meets done during the submission period for each course remain unchanged.  If for one year there are TWO National Meets' worth of times included, so be it.  And if FINA/USMS is out of sync for one year, why does that also matter?  There are times when individual results are out of sync from FINA/USMS (like someone doesn't dot their "i's" and cross their "t's" for a FINA Meet approval and so they break a world and national record but only the national record gets ratified).  I will choose not to wade into the argument of having a SCY nationals in July and a LCM nationals in October.

Things are just so whacky, topsy-turvy, and crazy right now that we could change the rules for this year and then have to change them again for the next year, and so on.  And why bend the rules on THIS matter but be so rigid on the issue of Session times for SCY Nationals a few weeks ago?  That issue was brought up and the sense I got was USMS wasn't interested in changing the rules because "this is what the rulebook says."  It's just hard not to look at this and see USMS as picking and choosing which rules to follow to the letter and which ones to bend to fit the situation.

TL;DR don't change the rules (RE: TT submissions).

Doesn't the FINA year go Nov to Nov for Masters?

I personally would like all three courses years be calendar. It would be more straight forward and there wouldn't be June SCY meets showing up as in the next year.

Doesn't the FINA year go Nov to Nov for Masters?

I personally would like all three courses years be calendar. It would be more straight forward and there wouldn't be June SCY meets showing up as in the next year.