2026 Summer Nationals event cap

It should be capped by times, and not by the order of the registration . Faster times should have priority, or capped by qualifying times. 

Never gonna happen.  Everyone enters bogus times anyways.

One idea could be to require everyone who wants to swim an event at Nationals to have swum that event (or the SCY/SCM/LCM equivalent) at a local event in the past two years and then use that time to "rank" everyone for priority in Nationals registration. It would be a great way to generate more support for local meets.

I attempted to compare all swimmers' seed times with their personal best (overall) and personal best (in age group - which I think is more fair and realistic) at Summer Nationals, using these psych/heats sheets, so it can be done!

https://www.tryopenlane.com/psych-sheet/2026-summer-nationals

https://www.tryopenlane.com/heat-sheet/2026-summer-nationals

Any feedback here would be great!

Perhaps I don't understand what you're trying to do. Are you suggesting that because someone is faster, they get priority registration? I think USMS goes for the "fitness, I'm ok, you're ok, we're having fun" thing.  It's a non-starter.  Also, generally USMS does not take advice from the forums riff-raff but keep tilting at windmills

Agree. This sounds wildly discriminatory against the older age groups, and mildly sexist as well. I don't have a solution, but this one simply selects young, fast, men. 

One idea is to give "points" to swimmers who actively compete in the events AND their equivalents, and to the fastest times within their age group (perhaps relative to the National Record).

I'm a swimmer without any NQTs, so I'm thinking out loud about a pathway for swimmers, especially those without NQTs, to still be able to swim.

I get why this seems like it’s inclusive, but requiring a previous swim unfairly disadvantages people who don’t have many local meet options. Nationals was already heavily represented by Pacific Masters (since it was local), this probably would have been even more heavily skewed if swimming the event was required, as we have so many meet opportunities if you live in the Bay Area and the part of the state west of the Bay Area. Nationals was my fifth meet of the year, and I never had to travel more than 90 minutes. I can off the top of my head think of at least four meets in that same distance that I didn’t go to. Some people have to travel further than that for the closest meet. It doesn’t surprise me, if they have to travel for meets, that some people would choose Nationals as their one event of the year.

I get why this seems like it’s inclusive, but requiring a previous swim unfairly disadvantages people who don’t have many local meet options. Nationals was already heavily represented by Pacific Masters (since it was local), this probably would have been even more heavily skewed if swimming the event was required, as we have so many meet opportunities if you live in the Bay Area and the part of the state west of the Bay Area. Nationals was my fifth meet of the year, and I never had to travel more than 90 minutes. I can off the top of my head think of at least four meets in that same distance that I didn’t go to. Some people have to travel further than that for the closest meet. It doesn’t surprise me, if they have to travel for meets, that some people would choose Nationals as their one event of the year.

Thank you for this point! I am lucky that I'm based in Seattle, and 6-7 meets are offered each year within 1 to 1.5 hours of me, while my friends in the Niagara LMSC (where I'm from) frequently have to travel more than two hours for a maximum of 2-3 meets a year.