https://community.usms.org/en-USTelligent Community 12https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299473Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:49:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:9a44b26c-b7a4-40a7-a5e4-c52576ea216bAllen StarkDoes 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299471Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:48:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:99f53979-9123-4edd-a997-ac23db5e501aJennifer TranOne 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299470Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:37:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:57553070-2a64-4a88-9747-010185100f84Karl_SAgree. 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299468Thu, 03 Sep 2026 01:30:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:3e258a80-c7df-4e85-b39e-7acbfc60aa1fKurt DicksonPerhaps 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 windmillshttps://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33264/usms-national-pool-championship-endurance-event-caps-and-seeding---suggestions-for-improvement/299465Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:42:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:2dfbcaa5-d641-469b-b78a-c2222c45e257Jennifer TranThanks 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299464Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:33:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:e3bdeec5-c12d-4cbd-8ed3-f6b7af9ea1c7Jennifer TranOne 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!https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299463Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:35:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:8f3fde0e-0e71-48c4-9e30-816add0944f9Kurt DicksonNever gonna happen. Everyone enters bogus times anyways.https://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33271/5th-annual-lcm-scm-meets-in-little-rock-1-15-17-2027Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:35:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:14f8896b-9484-4de0-a7ac-79e75dc2fa2aCalvin SJust wanted to let everyone know the dates have been set for the 5th annual "First Chance Long Course Invitational" and the "Arkansas Masters SCM Invitational." Both meets will be held at the newly renovated Donaghey Student Center on the campus of University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The DSC Natatorium is a 50M x 25Y course with a moveable bulkhead. Colorado Timing Systems with a large LED scoreboard and Myrtha starting blocks will all be utilized. The Long Course meet will be a single day/single session affair with all events offered on Friday, 1/15. The Short Course meet will be a two day/three session affair with all events offered: two sessions (one AM and one PM) on Saturday, 1/16 and one session (AM) on Sunday, 1/17. This is a fast meet, with over 50 world and national records broken over the past four years! Registration opens on November 1, 2026 and closes on January 10, 2027. You will need a valid 2027 USMS membership to register. Both meets can be found in the "Calendar of Events" on the USMS website. Please find the links to the meet websites below as well. LCM: www.clubassistant.com/.../meet_information.cfm SCM: www.clubassistant.com/.../meet_information.cfm Come take advantage of one of the earliest LCM/SCM meets in the country (remember USMS/AQUA rules for meters is your age as of December 31).https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299459Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:53:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:4fc71bb6-36d4-41d6-89a3-b3ec59fd4059Vadim WinebrandIt should be capped by times, and not by the order of the registration . Faster times should have priority, or capped by qualifying times.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299446Thu, 20 Aug 2026 15:37:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:bf4ddf48-384e-4a1a-9a9f-781b2edde1f6Rog HardyThx Kurt! Then I guess I can conclude we're only dealing with a LCM summer issue here. ☺ ️https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299445Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:36:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:f5e48fe9-6476-4e80-815c-7f26862074c1Kurt DicksonIrvine 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33258/2026-summer-nationals-event-cap/299443Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:00:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:9e529033-deef-4aac-ba1a-04a8ee11c3c5Rog HardyErin, 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.https://community.usms.org/events/f/usms-national-championship-international-events/33264/usms-national-pool-championship-endurance-event-caps-and-seeding---suggestions-for-improvementWed, 19 Aug 2026 15:56:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:7b97c73e-ea88-462c-b42c-c369f154cefbRog HardyThe 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.nationalsregistrationhttps://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299440Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:01:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:2f093c35-ba01-4c57-8627-ac3f0d3c7821Elaine Krugman2011 in Mesa is why I never swam at an outdoor Nationals ever again.https://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299439Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:08:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:efd5bccb-a819-4ed9-9e42-58d15aefd9e6Kurt DicksonArizona nationals has entered the chat. 1994 and 2003 Tempe, 2011 and 2019 Mesa. Although they were spring nationals, they were regularly over 100. ASU has air conditioning in the locker room. I recall the odd looks I received camped out in locker room. By the end of the meet, everyone was in the locker room.https://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299438Sat, 15 Aug 2026 19:55:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:5ce91229-4578-4434-b9eb-f2b8d2520d21Allen StarkYes months before the meet I had posted come to Oregon. It will be cool. Boy was I wrong. It was awful and that was the time of the black full bodysuit so people were baking on the starting blockshttps://community.usms.org/health-and-nutrition/f/injuries-illness/33099/retinal-detachment/299437Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:06:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:614e260d-9fd6-48f0-91d9-a4deaece869701U7TI had five detachments one in left eye then 4 in the right. She finally put the oil in then left it there for 3 years. She said I could swim but no backstroke, but i stayed out that whole time. Got the oil out, resumed swimming all strokes, but absolutely no diving off blocks, ever. So I start in the pool at meets, no biggie. I am legally blind in my right eye, but doesn't affect swimming. I think if you've had repeat detachments, don't dive off the blocks. Ask your doctor.https://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299436Thu, 13 Aug 2026 22:40:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:5acf851d-2400-4e20-89d6-44531cfbe518swoomerI was there…freezing and shivering until about 10:00 am with increasing temps until about 7:00 pm…then moving towards chilly again. And then… really schizophrenic temps all over again! Definitely needed my parka in the morning. It was a well-managed meet after the start. I’d do it again. I was in Mesa and Woodlands…they were all hot, but I don’t think my swimming was compromised by Sacramento temps. Maybe I’ve learned how to manage it better over time. Allen, I remember the 2008 Oregon Nationals…pretty steamy as well.https://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299435Sun, 09 Aug 2026 22:53:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:4a58405f-9bf6-46d3-9606-a6d568178be6Allen StarkThank youhttps://community.usms.org/events/f/pool-events/33261/hottest-nationals/299434Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:24:00 GMT3187ac58-ba85-4314-b79a-c45cd885e09a:f8835238-d51a-463e-9db9-a0b3001333efElaine KrugmanThe cool water served you well, King Frog! Congratulations, especially on your gold in the 50 breast and beating your seed times on all your races!