It's time for the NCAA to switch to LCM; a Manifesto
Former Member
I believe that the US team has been hurt by the NCAA continuing to stick with the SCY format. I believe that the fact that fewer and fewer college athletes are making the team is partially because college athletes are trained to race SCY (of course there are several other reasons for the shift as well). Here's a summary of why I think sticking with SCY is silly:
1. LCM requires specific training and experience to race optimally. Starts and turns are somewhat deemphasized, pacing and rhythm are made even more important. You often see relatively inexperienced US swimmers crushing walls but then losing time between the flags (Tom Shields springs to mind). I believe this is partially a result of focusing on short course. Most NCAA teams train long course on occasion, but it needs to be the focus.
2. I believe that part of the reluctance to go LCM is that the NCAA feels it may discriminate against programs without their own LCM facility. This shouldn't be a concern any more. At this point every major DI program has an LCM facility (or several LCM facilities). Many (the majority?) of quality DII and DIII programs have LCM facilities. The NCAA should stop worrying about upsetting a minority of members, bite the bullet and say they're going LCM.
3. SCY is the Galapagos of swimming formats: it was developed in a vacuum and exists only in the US. LCM is the world standard. SCY to LCM time conversions are very suspect. The excitement of NCAA championships would be much enhanced if the times were comparable to other times around the world. This would improve the prestige of the conference and the meet and improve the centrality of the NCAA in the world swimming landscape. It would also remove one of the (smaller) concerns that foreign talent may have for training in the US. IMO, the US needs to swim and train with the best at all times to ensure it stays competitive. Moving to LCM will enhance their ability to do so.
All of these points are debatable. I'd be interested to see what other people think.
I like the 5y distance just fine thank you. :D I always get to a meter pool and if I'm in backstroke, or an IM event it almost an OOPS as I'm entering the turn. I almost have to remember to take an extra stroke, and just look out for the wall at that point.
I have no preference between 5y or 5m, I would just like a single distance for all pools (like the 15m rule for underwaters, which holds in SCY as well).
Back to our regularly scheduled topic...
Long and short course bring out different skills. I think having collegians compete in both would probably be best. SC hones turns, underwaters and sprints. LC is better for developing stroke technique, especially over distance. Good confidence builder too.
We're not as strong above the 200s as we are below. That might be attributable to so much time in SC. I'm afraid we might get schooled a bit in London by low-stroke-count efficiency freaks like Sun Yang and Park Tae Hwan. Their technique is a peek into the future, and I'm sure they didn't learn it doing SC.
So there are 3 events over 200 yards, and here is how we've done in the past four Olympics:
400 free men: 3 medals (all bronze) out of 12 possible
1500 free men: 2 medals (silver, bronze)
400 IM men: 8 medals (4 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze)
400 free women: 4 medals (gold, 2 silver, bronze)
800 free women: 4 medals (2 gold, 2 bronze)
400 IM women: 3 medals (2 silver, 1 bronze)
I'm not going to do the work to figure out if this is statistically worse than our performance in other events, though I'll go out on a limb and assert that we're not doing too badly in the men's 400 IM (and likely to go 1-2 in London).
More generally, I'm not sure I completely buy the assertion that good technique is not all that important in short course competition (SCY or SCM).
Good underwaters can be pretty significant in LCM competition too, potentially up to 30% of the race distance. Watch some videos of Lochte last summer in World Championships, or the following from 2007.
Phelps Smashes 200-free World Record - YouTube
In terms of collegiate swimming, perhaps more significant than swimming short course was the introduction of 200-yd relays.
I like the 5y distance just fine thank you. :D I always get to a meter pool and if I'm in backstroke, or an IM event it almost an OOPS as I'm entering the turn. I almost have to remember to take an extra stroke, and just look out for the wall at that point.
I have no preference between 5y or 5m, I would just like a single distance for all pools (like the 15m rule for underwaters, which holds in SCY as well).
Back to our regularly scheduled topic...
Long and short course bring out different skills. I think having collegians compete in both would probably be best. SC hones turns, underwaters and sprints. LC is better for developing stroke technique, especially over distance. Good confidence builder too.
We're not as strong above the 200s as we are below. That might be attributable to so much time in SC. I'm afraid we might get schooled a bit in London by low-stroke-count efficiency freaks like Sun Yang and Park Tae Hwan. Their technique is a peek into the future, and I'm sure they didn't learn it doing SC.
So there are 3 events over 200 yards, and here is how we've done in the past four Olympics:
400 free men: 3 medals (all bronze) out of 12 possible
1500 free men: 2 medals (silver, bronze)
400 IM men: 8 medals (4 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze)
400 free women: 4 medals (gold, 2 silver, bronze)
800 free women: 4 medals (2 gold, 2 bronze)
400 IM women: 3 medals (2 silver, 1 bronze)
I'm not going to do the work to figure out if this is statistically worse than our performance in other events, though I'll go out on a limb and assert that we're not doing too badly in the men's 400 IM (and likely to go 1-2 in London).
More generally, I'm not sure I completely buy the assertion that good technique is not all that important in short course competition (SCY or SCM).
Good underwaters can be pretty significant in LCM competition too, potentially up to 30% of the race distance. Watch some videos of Lochte last summer in World Championships, or the following from 2007.
Phelps Smashes 200-free World Record - YouTube
In terms of collegiate swimming, perhaps more significant than swimming short course was the introduction of 200-yd relays.
