Here's the thing... I'm 33 and I'd love to swim masters but the meets aren't any fun. No atmosphere. What's a most fun in swimming? Kids summer league dual tri and quad meets on a beautiful summer evening. I'd love to head to my local pool on a weekend evening or afternoon have something like a bar setup for spectators, a crowded deck and have the 2,3,4 or 5 (whatever) local masters clubs square off for team points and light bragging rights. Definitely a reduced event schedule, shorter meet, fewer individual events, more mixed relays. I spent a decade spending all day at regional and national meets watching heats tick by and its boring as heck. Sailing has weeknight races. Towns have summer night 5k race series. Cities have incredibly popular kickball, soccer, and softball leagues after work. Why not swimming? We know what works for local kids meets, why not add some fun and local camaraderie back into things?
I'm new here so just my 2cents.
There is some truth to this. I was a mediocre age group swimmer and competed in the OCSC which was sort of a summer league and eventually won the 100 yard fly as a teenager.. It had dual meets. I did some masters meets when I was 45 and 46 years old and some were long as you stated. I stopped swimming again for 7 years and started up again in May of 2016 went to the local Senior Olympics and won a couple of medals. I saw a picture of swimmers at that meet. In 2018, I did the same thing. We had a little opening ceremony which I went to and carried the swimming sign. Some pictures on the Tucson city website and a picture of me winning the heat of the 100 yard breaststroke. What made this more fun was the pictures and medals and basically less events since we didn't do the 200 yards of the different strokes. This event didn't qualify for the national event like the Phoenix state one. You could buy both pins and t-shirts of the event.
Here's the thing... I'm 33 and I'd love to swim masters but the meets aren't any fun. No atmosphere. What's a most fun in swimming? Kids summer league dual tri and quad meets on a beautiful summer evening. I'd love to head to my local pool on a weekend evening or afternoon have something like a bar setup for spectators, a crowded deck and have the 2,3,4 or 5 (whatever) local masters clubs square off for team points and light bragging rights. Definitely a reduced event schedule, shorter meet, fewer individual events, more mixed relays. I spent a decade spending all day at regional and national meets watching heats tick by and its boring as heck. Sailing has weeknight races. Towns have summer night 5k race series. Cities have incredibly popular kickball, soccer, and softball leagues after work. Why not swimming? We know what works for local kids meets, why not add some fun and local camaraderie back into things?
I'm new here so just my 2cents.
There is some truth to this. I was a mediocre age group swimmer and competed in the OCSC which was sort of a summer league and eventually won the 100 yard fly as a teenager.. It had dual meets. I did some masters meets when I was 45 and 46 years old and some were long as you stated. I stopped swimming again for 7 years and started up again in May of 2016 went to the local Senior Olympics and won a couple of medals. I saw a picture of swimmers at that meet. In 2018, I did the same thing. We had a little opening ceremony which I went to and carried the swimming sign. Some pictures on the Tucson city website and a picture of me winning the heat of the 100 yard breaststroke. What made this more fun was the pictures and medals and basically less events since we didn't do the 200 yards of the different strokes. This event didn't qualify for the national event like the Phoenix state one. You could buy both pins and t-shirts of the event.
