New Speedo ad starring 91-year-old Jurgen Schmidt

The USA Swimming stats are a little disappointing with the numbers declining steadily for swimmers over 12 years old. There are just slightly more than half 16 year olds as there are 12 year olds.

Here are some membership statistics from USA Swimming. These are from Page 9 of this document: www.usaswimming.org/.../Statistics-2013.pdf USA Swimming 2013 Memberships Age............ Female............... Male.................. Total 0-8 ............ 19,779 .............. 14,911 ............. 34, 690 9 ............... 17,729 .............. 12,815 ............. 30,544 10 .............. 21,982 ............. 15,641 ............. 37,623 11 .............. 24,089 ............. 16,521 ............. 40,610 12 ............. 23,499 .............. 16,418 ............ 39,917 13 .............. 21,876 ............ 15,545 ............. 37,421 14 .............. 18,704 ............ 13,647 ............. 32,351 15 .............. 14,426 ............. 11,174 ............ 25,600 16 .............. 11,359 ............. 9,499 ............. 20,858 17 .............. 8,936 ............... 8,375 ............. 17,311 18 .............. 6,224 ............... 6,673 ............. 12,897 19+ ............. 4,785 .............. 5,961 .............. 10,746 Total........... 193,388 ........... 147,180 .......... 340,568 Females outnumber males up through age 17.

Here are some 2014 statistics: www.usms.org/.../reg_stats.pdf That's a great chart. I would bet 20-30 years ago the highest % of male and female swimmers would have been in the 30-34 age group. It would be interesting to see a similar chart done with only swimmers who compete in meets. All too often swimmers drop out of the meet circuit using the excuse "I can't go as fast as I used to anymore". When I ask them "why do you think there age groups" they usually have no answer.