Swim MAC Elite - A Study In Failure At Trials?

I love me some statistics - The clock (and the numbers) do not lie. According to the USA swimming website, there were 1790 swimmers that achieved a U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying time. This is .2% of the total USA Swimming membership (640k people) Making the Olympic Team roster are 45 total swimmers: 21 women, 24 men. 45 out of 1790 swimmers is 2.5%. 2.5% of the .2% make the team. (Pool swimmers only, not including the 1 10k swimmers you'd need to add to both mens and womens teams who made just the 10k and nothing in the pool.) This is something like .005% of all USA Swimming membership. SwimMac Elite has 16 USA swimmers, and of those, all 16 made 2016 Trials. One heck of an accomplishment for a single workout group. 6 of those 16 made the team - 37.5% of that one workout group!! Incredible! Those 6 are 13.3% of the entire team. Again, impressive. My input here: You can say what you want about Lochte being "better" or whatever than Litherland. Did SwimMAC and Marsh fail Lochte individually? Unless Marsh's training directly led to Lochte's groin injury, no swimmer or coach would tell you that Lochte's failure to earn a 200 IM spot was Marsh's fault. The fact remains that you still need to get in the pool, swim the race and finish 1st or 2nd. Lochte himself and himself alone didn't do that. As for SwimMAC/Marsh being a failure, looking at the statistics above, I cannot agree that on the whole SwimMAC and Marsh were failures. Given the odds of making the team, the number of swimmers on the US Olympic Team out of SwimMAC is impressive. Most teams are ecstatic to land one or two swimmers, but 6 is incredible! I can't imagine this cycle was not a good marketing tool for SwimMAC, as their elite squad probably has a few strong applicants waiting in the wings. Not to mention any of Geek's homegrown talent also waiting to move up.

I love me some statistics - The clock (and the numbers) do not lie. According to the USA swimming website, there were 1790 swimmers that achieved a U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying time. This is .2% of the total USA Swimming membership (640k people) Making the Olympic Team roster are 45 total swimmers: 21 women, 24 men. 45 out of 1790 swimmers is 2.5%. 2.5% of the .2% make the team. (Pool swimmers only, not including the 1 10k swimmers you'd need to add to both mens and womens teams who made just the 10k and nothing in the pool.) This is something like .005% of all USA Swimming membership. SwimMac Elite has 16 USA swimmers, and of those, all 16 made 2016 Trials. One heck of an accomplishment for a single workout group. 6 of those 16 made the team - 37.5% of that one workout group!! Incredible! Those 6 are 13.3% of the entire team. Again, impressive. My input here: You can say what you want about Lochte being "better" or whatever than Litherland. Did SwimMAC and Marsh fail Lochte individually? Unless Marsh's training directly led to Lochte's groin injury, no swimmer or coach would tell you that Lochte's failure to earn a 200 IM spot was Marsh's fault. The fact remains that you still need to get in the pool, swim the race and finish 1st or 2nd. Lochte himself and himself alone didn't do that. As for SwimMAC/Marsh being a failure, looking at the statistics above, I cannot agree that on the whole SwimMAC and Marsh were failures. Given the odds of making the team, the number of swimmers on the US Olympic Team out of SwimMAC is impressive. Most teams are ecstatic to land one or two swimmers, but 6 is incredible! I can't imagine this cycle was not a good marketing tool for SwimMAC, as their elite squad probably has a few strong applicants waiting in the wings. Not to mention any of Geek's homegrown talent also waiting to move up.