FINA NEWS

Ande, This is an old debate. FINA isn't going to change. If we don't follow their age groups, we can't set records or be part of the World Top Ten. We are so fortunate in how USMS is run. We, the swimmers, make the rules. Not so for FINA. Being a swimmer is not a criteria for the committee that makes the rules. That's why I said that FINA isn't going to change. They see no need to. USMS can make a proposal, but it goes nowhere. Whether or not USMS wants to change is another question. Proposals come up at convention every few years to change SCY to the FINA system.

FINA isn't going to change...We are so fortunate in how USMS is run. Agreed on both points Whether or not USMS wants to change is another question. Proposals come up at convention every few years to change SCY to the FINA system.No change. SCY is our little unique pool length here and -- to paraphrase "it's my ball, I make the rules" -- it's our pool, we make the rules. Plus, our rule actually makes sense on age!

I think FINA does it right with regards to age. The only thing that matters is the year you were born. Nice and simple. Not really sure why it matters, anyway. In both cases you compete in an age group for five years. The only difference is when you age up. It's sort of a six of one, half a dozen the other argument. I can't fathom why Ande thinks the FINA method is either dumb or unfair. I also like the combined age for relays thing, too. Makes more sense to me than the youngest swimmers dictating the age group.

I think FINA does it right with regards to age...I can't fathom why Ande thinks the FINA method is either dumb or unfair.Because it's not actually your age. Until I got acquainted with FINA rules, I think every meet I ever went to had your age as of the first day of the meet. We all calculate our age based upon the month, day and year of birth. I also like the combined age for relays thing, too. Makes more sense to me than the youngest swimmers dictating the age group.Well, on this point, I'll agree with FINA.

I also like the combined age for relays thing, too. Makes more sense to me than the youngest swimmers dictating the age group. I'll agree with this as well. With my workout group, I am by far the youngest of the competition group that attends meets with my team. In SCY, I often get sidelined for quite a few relays even though I'm asking to be on them. This is strictly because of my age, or at least former age. I was 33 and 34, and many of my teammates were all 56, 58, 60, 75 and greater. If I were included with them on relays we'd be competing in the 25+ age group. Without me, they're in the 55+ age group. I understand, but to me it's not fair! :bouncing: At least now I'm 35 now, so we can at least be in the 35+ age group which is a little better for our LMSC meets. :applaud:

Like, the FINA age rule is dumb and unfair. Why do they have it? To compete in an age group, swimmers should actually BE that age. USMS got it right for SCY and FINA didn't. It might be fair for swimmers to compete in a meet in a certain age group if they are that age by the end of the meet. From my understanding back in 1995 when FINA changed the rule was because it was easier to track Masters World Records when they are applied for by all the FINA Masters Member Nations. Birth Certificates were a big issue because some countries only had the year of birth and it was hard to track the actual date. Plus you had one age for the swimmer for the entire year. FINA did not get completely involved with Masters Swimming until 1986. The organization before FINA was called MSI, which stood for Masters Swimming International so when FINA started getting involved in Masters that is when this change took place FINA and MSI worked together until 1992 and then FINA took complete World control of Masters. One of the other reasons for the FINA change that I remember is that almost every FINA Member Nation and it might be everybody but the USA, LCM and SCM seasons for Top Ten run from January 1, XXX to December 31, XXX so with this age up system everyone swims the same age throughout the year for both courses and there is no swim that is done with different ages like what we have with Short Course Yards. USMS did not start Top Tens officially for SCM until 1986 and went to the FINA World system from Jan to Dec because we did not have an established system and there was no history with either USA Swimming or the AAU of the past. The only SCM that I remember swimming was the country clubs and swim clubs that had 25 meter pools in the summer seasons. If you are old enough to remember there was going to be a push for the USA to go metric with everything and that did not happen so for swimming the USA pretty much stuck with Short Course Yards. Because in the history of swimming with AAU Age Group, USA Swimming, HS Swimming, and NCAA Swimming the season for short course was always September to May and Long Course was the traditional summer months Memorial Day to Labor Day. USMS set up there system just like everyone else and we have been operating like that ever since as part of the tradition. Everyone ages up at their birthdate during the year and that is the age that you swam. In HS if you were 6 months older with someone in school you swam in the next age group. The advantage back then was that you did not want to age up because it was easier to beat young competition and that is just the opposite of masters swimming. Because of this tradition that we grew up with, most USMS members are comfortable with how we have been doing it and don't want to change. Unless you have a birthday from May 31 to September 1, most swimmers will have 2 different ages in the short course yards season and depending on the timing of your birthday it only affects the swimmer when they age up. This system seems fair because you age up on your birthday with everyone else just like getting your drivers license, being able to purchase alcohol, and voting. You do what you do because of your age and laws are written and enforced because of this. A lot of people like are SCY system and don't want to change this tradition. If you happen to miss getting in an age group for Short Course Nationals because you are short that is the way the ball bounces and its similar to having a January birthday as opposed to a December birthday for FINA purposes. As far as the other topics discussed here, I have copied a response from another post from 2 years ago about proposed rule changews and I have not changed by position of where I stand on those issues. R11 (age group determined by age on Dec 31 rather than last day of the meet): This is basically cheating by allowing some individuals to age up close to a year over somebody else. If you have a January/February birthday you get a disadvantage of having swimmers almost a year behind you treated as your same age. If you have a November/December birthday, you are basically stealing a year that you would not have against others that age up in the first 3 months of the year. That means you could set USMS Records, swim in USMS Short Course Nationals a year in advance, and be in the National Top Ten that you would not be entitled to under our current rules. I have never, ever heard of this arrangement in AAU, USA, YMCA, and any type of American Swimming that is governed by this country. FINA passed this rule in 1995 as a World Masters rule because most countries were on a calendar year bases for reporting both SCM and LCM results and it was easier to track World Records of swimmers thru the year. Since our SCY season is from June 1, XXXX to May 31, XXXX, this does not help us at all. The USA opposed this rule at the FINA meetings back in 1995 but it was passed and effective at the World level starting in the 1996 season. USMS did not follow this rule and for 3 years (1996, 1997, and 1998) ran our LCM and SCM competitions as actual age as of the last day of the meet just like SCY is done today. Since we were the only country doing this, a change was made in 1999, because it was just to confusing in the records section and see swimmers have World Records and not National Records and basically having swimmers have 2 ages, one in USMS Top Ten and another in FINA Top Ten. So USMS changed to the FINA rule only because of recordkeeping and nothing else. I was at the 3 conventions where the HOD was totally opposed to this because it made no sense and was forced upon USMS by FINA. Since FINA has nothing to do with SCY, there is no reason to change what we currently have unless you want swimmers to duck there competition in the last year of there age group and age up to lesser competition in the new age group. Unless the HOD has changed drastically in 13 to 15 years, I see this rules proposal as not passing. Should USMS align rules with FINA about age & relays? FINA relays add up ages, 72 - 99, 100 - 119, 120 - 159, 160 - 199, 200 - 239 ... USMS relays base it off the age of the youngest swimmer on the relay 18+, 25+, 35+, 45+, 55+ ... R11 (make short course yards relays cumulative, rather than 18+, 25+, and 10 year increments as high as necessary): I am against this proposal because I like the differences we have with SCY and SCM/LCM relay age groups and with this system in place a swimmer can age up every 5 years instead of 10 years if you had all courses using the SCM/LCM cummulative age brackets. The 25+, 35+, 45+, 55+, 65+, 75+ are the base ages for 4 relay swimmers for SCY. 120-159, 160-199, 200-239, 240-279, 280-319, and 320-259 are the age groups with the base ages beginning at 30+, 40+, 50+, 60+, 70+, and 80+. In the odd years you age up for yards and the even years you age up for meters. So every 5 years you could put together a relay with 4 like swimmers in your age group and go higher if don't have swimmers in that 5 year age group. In SCY, you never swim against anyone younger than the base age of the youngest swimmer and I like that quality because all the other age groups fall in line. The cumulative age approach would have swimmers from all age groups swim as they average out the ages to the brackets and you could be always swimming against someone younger outside your 10 year window and have to average it out with older swimmers to make the age group. I like having to swim SCY in two individual age groups like 55+ would cover 55-59 and 60-64 because you are swimming with swimmers your own age and you would be crossing with some of these swimmers in the regular age groups in the 10 years swimming the relays. This promotes good competition in the age groups and it discourages you to swim down one or two age groups unless you are really good. I think this makes a big difference at the US Short Course Nationals because its usually double the size of Long Course Nationals and this year it was triple the size and you have larger clubs that have more swimmers in the 10 years between age groups. Because the LCM is usually smaller and there is not as many swimmers in the 10 years between age groups, then the combined route might be easier to put competitive relays together. If this proposal passed it would get rid of over 40 years of history and tradition of SCY relay times in USMS. We have SCY relay records that would be gone and forgotten and we could never compare the 40 years of relay records or relay top ten number 1 swims in the future because we would be starting from scratch. The combined ages would start now and there would be no comparision of years of progression in the USMS data bases like we can do now for all of the individual events. This would not be like FINA starting the Relay World Records for the 400 and 800 events because the National Records would for those events in USMS are still standing and we did not wipe the slate clean with completely new records like we would with this combined ages and we still have the history of our past National Records. I also think of all the Zone, LMSC, Championship Meet, and Club relay records that would go away with this change and having to start over with no history like your individual events would have. I think swimmers who have worked hard thru the years to get relay National Records would like to see them broken by a challenge from swimmers than by a change from this rules proposal.

We all calculate our age based upon the month, day and year of birth. In this country, but are you sure people do worldwide? As Skip mentioned some countries don't even bother notating the actual date of birth on their birth certificates.

I'm born in Feb.so I don't like the FINA rules.Tim Shead broke my WR when he was 59 so I said to my self "nyah,nyah,he didn't really break it".Rick Colella then smashed it at age 60 ,but FINA says he's 61 because he is born in Dec.

In this country, but are you sure people do worldwide? As Skip mentioned some countries don't even bother notating the actual date of birth on their birth certificates. I believe I heard somewhere that some countries or something say that you are 1 year old at birth...I assume they're counting the entire time you're in your mother's womb as living time and rounding it up to 1 year to start out. I don't have a source for this, it's just something I think I saw somewhere.

On the FINA age rule, to compete in an age group, I think swimmers should actually BE that age. It gives swimmers born in later months in the year an advantage. Though I was born May 21st, which usually screws me for SCY Nats each time I age up, years ending in 3 & 8 There are going to be bad birthdays either way, I don't think one rule is better than the other for this. For example, my son has a Feb birthday, before championship season, meaning he is always competing with kids mostly older than him in those meets. Internationally this rule has been the case a long time, I think. When I was 12 and we moved abroad in the late 70s, it was the rule used. I don't see it changing anytime soon.