Full disclosure: I am a pure (i.e. "drop dead") sprinter :)]
Watching Track & Field, I'm always struck how they offer what can truly be described as "pure" sprints: the 100m dash (and in indoors, the 60m). These are races that time sub-10 and sub-7 seconds at the elite level. Yet swimming's shortest race is 21 seconds (for the rest of us, quite a bit more than 21 seconds ...).
I was speaking with some sprint swimming coaches who agreed that even our "splash & dash" 50 free is not a true sprint ... it's close, but the best sprinters actually back off a tiny fraction from their absolute max to maintain a greater speed overall. At my USMS level, the winning times are in the low 25's. There's no way that's a true sprint -- 25 seconds is not entirely ATP-fueled. And while it's mostly anaerobic, is it entirely? Certainly a sub-10 or sub-7 race would be.
Time-wise, our 50 parallels Track & Field's 200 rather than their marquee sprint, the 100.
In my fantasy world, I imagine a 25m race at the international level (swimming through the finish like Track & Field athletes) ... fastest reaction, fastest acceleration, fastest underwater & surface, fastest ABSOLUTE speed.
Before 1988, our "shortest" Olympic race was the 100m!
So the next window of opportunity to vote on this change is the 2014 Convention. According to the latest minutes, there are some forumites on the Rules Committee. Rules Committee members, how does a change get proposed to the Rules Committee for consideration?
I'm not on the Rules Committee but (as chair of Records & Tabulation) I have submitted rule change proposals. One thing to remember is Article 601.2.1:
Authorization—Changes to the USMS Code of Regulations and Rules of Competition may be proposed only by an LMSC, a standing committee of
the House of Delegates, the Board of Directors or the Executive Committee.
The most common route for a typical USMS member to get a rule proposed is take it to his/her LMSC Board and have them make the proposal. Of course it would help to build a "base" of support to convince the LMSC officers that this is something that members in their LMSC would want. Deadline for rule change submissions is July 1 if I recall correctly.
I should probably point out that it is not completely necessary to propose a rule change to contest events like 25 free or 500 backstroke. Some meets already do this as "non-standard" events. Possibly we could even convince the IT folk to start tracking such non-standard events in our results database so that there could be unofficial "top ten" rankings and records. But this approach maybe won't satisfy some people (maybe most).
So the next window of opportunity to vote on this change is the 2014 Convention. According to the latest minutes, there are some forumites on the Rules Committee. Rules Committee members, how does a change get proposed to the Rules Committee for consideration?
I'm not on the Rules Committee but (as chair of Records & Tabulation) I have submitted rule change proposals. One thing to remember is Article 601.2.1:
Authorization—Changes to the USMS Code of Regulations and Rules of Competition may be proposed only by an LMSC, a standing committee of
the House of Delegates, the Board of Directors or the Executive Committee.
The most common route for a typical USMS member to get a rule proposed is take it to his/her LMSC Board and have them make the proposal. Of course it would help to build a "base" of support to convince the LMSC officers that this is something that members in their LMSC would want. Deadline for rule change submissions is July 1 if I recall correctly.
I should probably point out that it is not completely necessary to propose a rule change to contest events like 25 free or 500 backstroke. Some meets already do this as "non-standard" events. Possibly we could even convince the IT folk to start tracking such non-standard events in our results database so that there could be unofficial "top ten" rankings and records. But this approach maybe won't satisfy some people (maybe most).
