Darian Townsend entered a masters meet in Mesa over the weekend and broke five world records in the 25-29 age group. This was Townsend's first masters meet. For those of you who are not familiar with him, Townend is a three-time Olympian and gold medalist from South Africa.
Swimswam.com posted a story about Townend's incredible meet. Here's the link: swimswam.com/.../
I found the comments quite interesting especially this one by "HMMM":
I have no problem with athletes making money off of Masters but why have a separate division called Masters if there are no rules or restrictions? None of the sponsored people you mention in their 50′s are training for Rio are they?. Most people in Masters believe they are swimming against recreational swimmers which is why there is a separate Masters division and those records are set by recreational/retired swimmers. If Phelps remains retired and wants to swim Masters, well there goes a few records in his age group but none of us in our club would have a problem with it. We discussed that very subject this morning after practice and Phelps, like Rowdy Gaines is retired and would welcome him. Many of us have swam against and met Rowdy and it is a true honor to share the pool with him in a Masters meet. But our entire team would have a huge problem if Lochte decides to swim a Masters meet while he is still fully training for the Olympics and blows all the records out of the water. If Lochte swims 12 events, he is going to walk away with 12 records. Why have a separate record book? If he can do that, you might as well just call us all USA swimmers and do away with the Masters division. There are meets where fully training pros swim and they are called Grand Prix’s, Nationals, and Worlds. Call us old fashioned, call us Masters swimmers, but we all think Masters should be separate from the training pros..
So I'm curious what the rest of you think. Should someone like Darian Townend or Ryan Lochte be allowed to swim in masters meets when they are professional swimmers who are training full-time? And maybe "allowed" is a poor choice or word. The bottom line is do you think they have any business swimming masters meets?
Simply because a record is a record. It should be the fastest time swum . As soon as you start putting caveats on records the records immediately become next to meaningless.:agree:
Why not simply recognize age group records set at any FINA-sanctioned event?This actually makes a lot of sense and I could get behind this.
My first petition is to declare knelson and pwb unreal masters swimmers so I can move up on the Top Ten rankings annually.OK, if we're going down this path then I really want to be #1 in the 50 breaststroke, so I hereby declare all the 45-49 year olds who beat me last year to be unreal ... all forty-seven of you (including that most aqueous of rats from Pittsburgh).
I don't understand the distinction between elites racing at the world cup/grand prix/nationals and retired elites. In both cases, those elites will smoke the typical or even quite excellent masters swimmer. Indeed, many retired elites now hold masters worlds records. Why would it be invalid for them to have records at 25-29 but perfectly ok at 45-49? I agree; it makes no sense to have some sort of age cut-off or delineation of what constitutes someone as being in 'full training' mode.
Do we have to go back in time now and nullify the records Dara Torres set at the 2006 Worlds because, after racing there, she decided to get back into training and competing at the Olympic level?
What about the folks who are retired now and devoting possibly as much relative energy and mindshare to their training as some of the 'elite' younger folks competing at the Olympics?
None of these cutoffs make sense. If you are the age, if you swim the time in a sanctioned event, if you are a member, you can and should set all the records you want.
I, for one, hope we see more examples of people like Darrian Townsend (who does train, evidently, 3 days a week with the Masters team) coming to USMS or FINA Masters meets, putting on a great show and tearing down more records.
Simply because a record is a record. It should be the fastest time swum . As soon as you start putting caveats on records the records immediately become next to meaningless.:agree:
Why not simply recognize age group records set at any FINA-sanctioned event?This actually makes a lot of sense and I could get behind this.
My first petition is to declare knelson and pwb unreal masters swimmers so I can move up on the Top Ten rankings annually.OK, if we're going down this path then I really want to be #1 in the 50 breaststroke, so I hereby declare all the 45-49 year olds who beat me last year to be unreal ... all forty-seven of you (including that most aqueous of rats from Pittsburgh).
I don't understand the distinction between elites racing at the world cup/grand prix/nationals and retired elites. In both cases, those elites will smoke the typical or even quite excellent masters swimmer. Indeed, many retired elites now hold masters worlds records. Why would it be invalid for them to have records at 25-29 but perfectly ok at 45-49? I agree; it makes no sense to have some sort of age cut-off or delineation of what constitutes someone as being in 'full training' mode.
Do we have to go back in time now and nullify the records Dara Torres set at the 2006 Worlds because, after racing there, she decided to get back into training and competing at the Olympic level?
What about the folks who are retired now and devoting possibly as much relative energy and mindshare to their training as some of the 'elite' younger folks competing at the Olympics?
None of these cutoffs make sense. If you are the age, if you swim the time in a sanctioned event, if you are a member, you can and should set all the records you want.
I, for one, hope we see more examples of people like Darrian Townsend (who does train, evidently, 3 days a week with the Masters team) coming to USMS or FINA Masters meets, putting on a great show and tearing down more records.
