Has anyone else experienced Masters meets where swimmers are individually selected to participate, rather than either a) open entry or b) qualifying-time dependant? Personally, I find them rather distasteful, as they seem exclusive and not very much in the spirit of Masters swimming. Particularly when there isn't really information as to how one might get selected for such meets.
I'd be interested in how other feel about this.
K
I've never heard of this in swimming. However in my city, tennis works this way - we have friendly leagues, and then exclusive by invite only - after watching them play, it's easy to see that most people would not be skilled enough to play against them, so it doesn't bother me so much. I think of it as more a friendly match between elite players. Perhaps these exclusive meets are the same?
We have looked into trying to host a sanctioned inter-squad meet (so times could count) so we could control the size and keep the time limited to our scheduled Saturday workout time.
Pool rental costs continue to go up (another pool in our area now charges $2500 per day) and meet participation in AZ has been inconsistent...we have had to cancel a meet twice in the last 3 years because of low numbers (PHX did just recently as well) but our competitive crew needs to race so this would be an option.
