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.
Two notes:
1. I definitely agree that the rise of the professional swimmer is the primary reason for the lack of college (male) athletes making the Olympic team. I noted that LCM was only one of many factors, it's certainly not the only one.
2. Note that I said every major swimming program had an LCM facility. Not every NCAA program. Big difference.
Now that I'm through being defensive, here's any interesting article by Jonty Skinner on this very topic:
Here.
His conclusions:
1. SCY and LCM events of the same distance category are remarkably different in terms of conditioning requirements and resulting training strategy requirements. 200 SCY free is a very different event than 200 LCM free. He talks about both event duration and stroke pace degradation as they relate to SCY and LCM. He concludes that by focusing on training for SCY, we're doing our best athletes a disservice on the world stage.
2. Across the board, many NCAA finalists perform poorly at LCM meets (notably US Nationals). He argues this is partially a result of SCY-focused training.
3. He states that the majority of the best swimmers and coaches in the 60s and 70s were from club programs that heavily focused on LCM. The center of swimming power has now shifted to the NCAA system and SCY. As a result, he notes that SCY performance has continued to improve dramatically over time while the pace of LCM performance improvement has stagnated.
Long story short, he agrees with me: SCY is the devil and must be stopped. Stopped I say!
when I sent the link to Jonty's paper to my friend,
he texted back "DUH"
He also commented, I think Jonty shouldn't have included females in his study, because several high school & college girls made the Olympic team.
He also commented most top male swimmers in the 200 free are 200 / 400 swimmers as opposed to 100 / 200 swimmers, only Berens made the 100 / 200 free relays (& phelps & maybe lochte)
Many great SCY swimmers and great SDKers like David Nolan, Austin Staab, didn't fare so well LCM. Which is the direct result of training emphasis.
when I sent the link to Jonty's paper to my friend,
he texted back "DUH"
He also commented, I think Jonty shouldn't have included females in his study, because several high school & college girls made the Olympic team.
He also commented most top male swimmers in the 200 free are 200 / 400Ande,
Skinner’s report is from a decade ago, not based on current swimming paradigms.
Across the board, many NCAA finalists perform poorly at LCM meets (notably US Nationals). I don’t see where Skinner states this??? According to his study over 60% of top 16 NCAA finalists were also in the US LCM nationals top 16. That seems like a very respectable percentage. Looking strictly at placing at nationals I’d say they performed phenomenally well.
There was a team from a small mill town in British Columbia in the sixties called Ocean Falls, They would sent 6 or less swimmers to the Canadian Nationals (LCM) and win the team title (mens). They had only a 20 yard pool to train in. They had a coach well ahead of his time and some very talented swimmers: Ralph Hutton, Sandy Gilchrist, Bert Petersen etc.
Australia's looking to emulate the NCAA system to develop their swimmers. The article doesn't say if they would focus on short course or long course.
swimnews.com/.../9788
Australia's looking to emulate the NCAA system to develop their swimmers. The article doesn't say if they would focus on short course or long course.
swimnews.com/.../9788
Officially, "a long course event (50m pool) is the preferred option for an Australian University Championship / Games event, however, a short course event (25m pool) may be held". (http://www.unisport.com.au)
Australian Uni Games have been a thing for a number of years. The (very few) universities that currently have coached on-campus swim squads are not necessarily the ones that win the swimming there. The majority of Australian universities do not have a pool at all, of any length.
The Australian equivalent of USAS races LCM October-April (approx), SCM the rest of the year. Same general pattern for Masters meets - LC over summer, SC over winter - but the seasons aren't as clear-cut, and some postal meets can be swum either LC or SC as convenient.
I'm a lousy turner, so I'm actually faster long course than short course (quite a lot of swimmers with disabilities are). That, of course, is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
While we are talking changes in NCAA swimming, I’d love to see an NCAA Open Water championship!:worms: Me too, maybe in the early Fall and have the points carry over to pool championship in the spring. High end programs would have to seriously recruit distance swimmers for a change.
When someone finds a way for all these universities to "stretch" their 25Y pools (or replace them) at no expense, perhaps we will see the day.
But, since there is no "free lunch" let us not create a requirement that will give the Athletic Directors yet another reason to simply shut down USA college programs.
