USMS National Championship/International Events - Recent Threads

RE: USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Allen Stark — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 03:42:11 GMT

I love your recommendations. In the 200 LCM breaststroke I really like to know who I’m swimming against and have them in the heat with me. If I’m swimming when it’s only seeded by time, I have no idea if the people around me are likely to swim their seed times or how they might be pacing when I’m going against my competition. It’s easier to figure out and a lot more fun

USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Rog Hardy — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 15:56:56 GMT

The Summer Nationals meet is a wrap! I competed and watched from start to finish, and thought it was very well run at a beautiful facility. Appreciations as always to the dedicated people who sacrifice a lot of time before and during to make these events possible. There was some controversy and frustration before the meet however, well documented on the 2026 Summer Nationals event cap thread. After competing, watching and communicating I have some constructive recommendations for modifications for how 200 and over event caps (if needed) and a related issue, seeding, are handled. I plan to post them on this thread and email them to the championship committee in the near future. Before I do, however, I would like to learn what perspectives others might have and what if any changes the championship committee are considering. There has been no new post since the meet. Is event caps at Nationals no longer an issue? Because of location it might it be Deja Vu all over again for Irvine next Spring. Also, time is a bit of the essence as the USMS annual meeting is September 18 to 19. I’ll hone my thoughts a little while longer while I wait to see if any other perspectives come in. Here is my email if you want to contact me directly, rogershardy@gmail.com, but I think this is a great forum. Finally, USMS has posted a meet survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/97DXC85. I’ll take my survey after hearing from anyone who wishes to post on a USMS community thread or email me.

RE: USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Rog Hardy — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 03:00:15 GMT

Hi, Jennifer, and thanks for the reply. Comments:

Why do i think four seeds should have the opportunity to swim together? While the number is a bit arbitrary, it is the max number that could be combined with the four top seeds from another age group in the same heat for timeline considerations. There would be actually two races for the championship going on at once, giving the announcer plenty to talk about. This would come into play more in the older, slower age groups with fewer entrants. Notice that I said, as a qualifier as I hope this is a discussion starter, 'at least four'. If there are more than four quality seeds capable of winning the age group, I think the coding should be set up to accommodate up to a full championship heat of eight, just like in the 'sprint' events.

Should seed times be self-reported, or actual meet times? I will leave this to discussion. I think the majority of opinions over the years have supported actual times. SCY and LCM have conversions, and many commenters have pointed out the lack of meets in some regions. How far back? I dunno, two years?

It would be fun to do forensics on the longer events at recent nationals to see if more relational software could shorten the total timeline.. Based on a glance at the mens 1500 at Sacramento, it looks like some time could be saved the way the swimmers got chopped up by starting by filling the fastest heat with eight and leaving the two slowest heats with three and seven swimmers. But i haven't done anything analytical yet. Of course in that event there were swimmers who whished to swim who were excluded altogether. I appreciate seeding is a tough call that has been mooted for decades.

My basic purpose is to re-instill a sense of racing to the longer events while preserving the timeline. Thanks again.

RE: USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Jennifer Tran — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 02:28:10 GMT

Thank you for giving more thought to the Championship event caps/seeding.

1. Is there a reason why you chose four top seeds as opposed to a different number?

2. For the top seeds in the event, should seed times be self-reported, or should they be checked with actual meet times? If the latter, what time should the system use? For example, LCM only for Summer Nationals? SCY only for Spring Nationals? How far back should it consider times?

I'm curious whether you also re-did any heats from Nationals and whether you gave any time improvements back to the meet, since the most critical issue seems to be event caps instituted to ensure championship meets end at a specific time.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Rog Hardy — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:58:35 GMT

I am heartened to see continued constructive dialog on event caps at nationals. I am confident the championship committee considered improvements to the cap process at their recent meeting after nationals and will be bringing the issue to the upcoming national meeting. (The need for caps was anticipated – the committee’s 2025 minutes stated, “Will probably have to limit entries for events 200 and longer if attendance reaches expectations.”) And, the ways and means of capping are flexible – the rule cited, 104.5.3.C(2), says longer events MAY be capped, but does not dictate HOW. No need for rule changes for improvement!

Replies in this thread suggested lots of ways to improve the cap process if needed in the future. I’ll just emphasize I saw a number of comments requesting a ‘heads up’ early in registration to the possible issue, and transparency during registration and administration of the waitlist. I have just now replied on the thread I created, "USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement". Please take a look, and hopefully discussions will continue toward improvements in seeding and caps for the nationals endurance events.

2026 Summer Nationals event cap

09433 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:46:28 GMT

I’m curious how others feel about the event caps at Summer Nationals this year.

I understand the need to keep the meet timeline manageable. My concern isn’t that events were capped—it’s that there didn’t seem to be any advance information about which events were likely to fill or how the capacities would be managed.

I was surprised to find that all of the events over 100 meters were already closed while shorter events remained open. Without knowing that ahead of time, it felt like registration became a race to click “submit” rather than an opportunity to register for the events you’ve trained all season to swim.

In my opinion, USMS should have published estimated event capacities or identified events that were likely to fill quickly before registration opened. I think having that information would allow swimmers to make more informed decisions and would make the registration process feel more transparent.

I’m interested to hear what others think and whether anyone else was caught off guard by the event caps.

RE: USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Rog Hardy — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:57:44 GMT

I SUGGEST USMS LEADERSHIP CONSIDER:

Defending national champions and at least the top four seeds for each age group for ALL events be allowed access to national championships meets regardless of any event cap process.
Defending national champions and at least the top four seeds for each age group for ALL events be seeded in adjacent lanes in the same heat. (If an individual has a seed time significantly faster than anyone else in their age group, they can have the option to be seeded in a heat with similar times.)

RATIONALE AND MECHANICS

First, I wholly support
- USMS vision of inclusion for all swimmers, new or champion, in all events and activities, including the national championships.
- waving a certain number of events from the National Qualifying Times for new swimmers.
- need for championship meet time-line rigor so a day ends at a civil hour.
- The dedication and time commitment of the USMS volunteers, especially under tight deadlines associated with large meets.
The national championships are presently, however, in effect two meets being run concurrently: A national championship consisting of “sprint” 50 and 100 events each with a championship heat, and a “national swim festival” for “endurance” 200m and longer events consisting of time trials where top-seeded competitors with very close seed times are often split into different heats or across the pool, or recently, excluded from their core events entirely.
I am aware of the flurry of work at a large meet after ‘positive check-in’. I am confident, however, that there are USMS members with high cognitive coding skills who could effectively devise software that could quickly seed endurance events that are more inclusive and competitive while preserving time discipline.
When event caps are imposed, endurance swimmers might be locked out entirely while sprint swimmers have a chance to contend for a championship. As commented this is exclusionary to and discriminates against endurance swimmers.
I am confident the actual number of events that swimmers exempt from caps under this suggestion might enter would be small and would not adversely affect the timeline.
I realize this endurance seeding issue has come up in the past. Because of more comprehensive coding capabilities, however, I am suggesting the issue be re-visited.
One reason swimmers new to competition come to nationals is to view and associate with world class competitors. My suggestions would provide a more balanced meet, with no contender excluded with endurance championship heats for beginning swimmers to watch, and more elite endurance swimmers at the meet to interact with. I feel this would far outweigh any vibe of elitism in exempting a few top endurance contenders from caps. New swimmers to nationals may the growth engine for USMS, but the core and lifeblood are the few national contenders who have competed for decades.
These modifications will make way for way more interesting endurance events, with the announcer able to narrate a championship heat for all events and all age groups. Nationals are long days. Successful implementation of my suggestions will give the announcer more to talk about during endurance event championship heats, engaging spectators more fully and making for a more engaging day.
Finally, I am aware USMS leadership has major issues to deal with these days. Tweaking our great national championships to be more inclusive and acknowledge our endurance champion contenders, however, won’t take that much work and will make for better meets.

PERSONAL STANDING

45 year USMS member, occasional top ten postings.
High school and college national caliber programs in the 1960’s
Pay dues, workout and compete. Never volunteered in the USMS organization

I look forward to discussions about these issues and my suggestions on this platform and in the upcoming meetings.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Jennifer Tran — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 02:47:54 GMT

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.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

166DW — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 19:37:38 GMT

This suggestion ignores the inclusivity of USMS. The 3-event cap is the already the balance. I understand that if you are a fast swimmer, you want the times to be weighted, but we have USA swimming for that already.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

166DW — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 19:34:30 GMT

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.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Allen Stark — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:49:10 GMT

Does anyone know how long after registration opened before event started getting capped. if we’re going to have caps and I guess we are then I think when the Meet information is sent out and when registration opens, there should be a large warning about caps instead of being in the fine print. Also, it would be good to know how long it takes before entries likely close so that if you wanted to enter, say the 800 you know that you probably had a making it up 30 days after registration opens to make it.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Jennifer Tran — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:48:02 GMT

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.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Karl_S — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:37:39 GMT

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.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Kurt Dickson — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 01:30:58 GMT

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 🙂

RE: USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement

Jennifer Tran — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:42:46 GMT

Thanks for the discussion on Nationals Championship Event Caps.

One of my biggest frustrations with Nationals registration was the lack of visibility into the waitlist. A modernized system could show registered entries, waitlist entries, and your waitlist position, while letting swimmers swap or scratch events themselves. I had to go back and forth with USMS by email and Google Forms just to change one event, without knowing whether I had any realistic chance of getting off a waitlist. I imagine managing hundreds of similar requests also creates a lot of work for USMS staff.

Before Nationals, Yawei Hao and I from Pacific Northwest LMSC also created these Psych/Heat sheets for Summer Nationals, which compare each swimmer’s seed time with their overall personal best and age-group personal best. We found that swimmers enjoyed understanding their competition, and this data could also help identify inaccurate seed times and place swimmers in the correct heats and lanes. This also shows we can capture each swimmer's personal-best time (age-group PB is probably most realistic) in the event and potentially prioritize those with the fastest actual times, not just self-reported seed times.

I’ve also heard the idea of limiting Nationals to swimmers with NQTs, but I’m skeptical of shutting out swimmers without them. I learned to swim as an adult three years ago and still don’t have an NQT. Attending my first Nationals in Indianapolis in 2024 inspired me to formally train with a Masters team and helped me progress beyond our local Adult Learn to Swim program. I hope more ALS swimmers can have that experience.

I analyzed the seed times from 2026 Summer Nationals to see how much removing non-NQT swims would actually affect the meet:

1,012 of 4,918 swims (20.6%) did not have an NQT seed time.
252 of 1,409 swimmers entered only events without NQT times, including 15 swimmers aged 85+ with no NQTs.
Another 232 swimmers entered a mix of NQT and non-NQT events.
Removing all non-NQT swims except 85+ and reorganizing the heats would have saved about 4 hours and 56 minutes.
Keeping everyone and reorganizing and reseeding by time would have saved about 2 hours and 29 minutes.

This doesn’t account for swimmers on the waitlists who would have filled open spots, so it would be interesting to see the waitlist data. Have you had any luck getting that from USMS?

Rather than shutting out swimmers without NQTs, I think there are at least two alternatives worth discussing.

1) Faster NQTs. We developed percentile-based times that rank swimmers based on USMS Event Rankings from the previous full season, such as AAAA representing roughly the top 2% of swimmers. You can see the NQTs are slower than many Top 55% times. Of course, USMS swimmers who attend meets are generally just faster, so these numbers are skewed.

Could percentile-based tiers like these provide a more consistent basis for NQTs?

2) A qualification pathway that also encourages local meet participation. Perhaps swimmers could accumulate qualification points or simply be required to have raced an event locally within the previous year or two before entering its equivalent at Nationals. For example, I raced the 500 SCY twice in the 2025-26 season and four times in the 2024-25 season. Even though I didn’t have an NQT, I think that my participation should count toward earning a spot to swim the 400 free at Nationals.

I’d be curious what you think about these approaches, particularly whether qualification should be based entirely on speed or also reward participation in Masters meets.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Jennifer Tran — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:33:13 GMT

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!

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Kurt Dickson — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:35:06 GMT

Never gonna happen. Everyone enters bogus times anyways.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Vadim Winebrand — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:53:02 GMT

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

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Rog Hardy — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 15:37:13 GMT

Thx Kurt! Then I guess I can conclude we're only dealing with a LCM summer issue here. ☺️

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Kurt Dickson — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:36:16 GMT

Irvine will not be deja vu. It's short course and while I would suspect a big turnout, it will have two pools to run. Very few places with two long course pools.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

Rog Hardy — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:00:55 GMT

Erin, the Summer Nationals is a wrap! I competed and watched from start to finish, and thought it was very well run at a beautiful facility. Appreciations as always to you and all the dedicated people who sacrifice a lot of time before and during to make these events possible. There was some controversy and frustration before the meet however, well documented on this thread. After competing, watching and communicating I have some constructive recommendations for modifications for how 200 and over event caps (if needed) and a related issue, seeding, are handled. I plan to post them on a new thread I created, "USMS National Pool Championship Endurance Event Caps and Seeding - suggestions for improvement", and email them to the championship committee in the near future. Before I do, however, I would like to learn what perspectives others might have and what if any changes the championship committee are considering. There has been no new post on this thread since the meet. Is event caps at Nationals no longer an issue? Because of location it might it be Deja Vu all over again for Irvine this Spring. Also, time is a bit of the essence as the USMS annual meeting is September 18 to 19. I’ll hone my thoughts a little while longer while I wait to see if any other perspectives come in. Here is my email if you want to contact me directly, rogershardy@gmail.com, but I think this is a great forum. Finally, USMS has posted a meet survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/97DXC85. I’ll take my survey after hearing from anyone who wishes to post on this thread or email me.

RE: World Aquatics 2025 Top Ten Announced

Britt03 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:32:59 GMT

I have not heard of any honoring in the past for AQUA Top 10 accomplishments by USMS.
Back when it was FINA, you could order a Top 10 patch off the FINA website. I have not checked if AQUA released new versions of these patches. To add: those were generic Top 10 patches without a year on it.

World Aquatics 2025 Top Ten Announced

BethanyBurchill — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:52:40 GMT

World Aquatics has announced the Top Ten for 2025.

See links below for more information and congratulations to all making the list!

https://www.worldaquatics.com/masters/top-10/lcm-2030-2021 (LCM)

https://www.worldaquatics.com/masters/top-10/scm-2030-2021 (SCM)

RE: World Aquatics 2025 Top Ten Announced

Irish — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:43:54 GMT

Unfortunately WA doesn’t accept USA meet results. Also if you did your best time at a USA meet and then your next best time was at a USMS - but it is still top 10 worthy - it’s not going to show up either. :( USMS should have that fixed for next year but I understand nothing can be done for this year.

RE: 2026 Summer Nationals event cap

03WKA — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:41:03 GMT

I will add a sixth...

How can USMS be allowing a 6th event for people before allowing a waitlist event which, at least in some cases, is only a second event?