This is somewhat related to another post I just started (Top Ten conerns). I noticed in the top ten list a number of swimmers (generally very fast swimmers) who swam their first nationals (or any other masters meet) in 5 years due to being in a new age group. I state this by looking at the past few years top ten lists and not seeing their names. Is this a good thing for masters swimming? Swimmers whose only affiliation with masters swimming is showing up to one meet every 5 years to break a record. These records should be owned by people that are true masters swimmers.
What is a true masters swimmers?- Perhaps doing a few meets a year might work. When I swam on an age group team as a child, I know in order to qualify for our championship meet, we had to swim at least 3 regular meets. Perhaps a rule like that for Nationals could begin to fix this problem-
If not, many of our national records will be held by "ringers"
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There are plenty of swimmers that only compete right after they age up (and perhaps only in big meets), yet they train year-round the rest of the time. I don't perceive this to be unfair to anybody. I don't perceive it as a "problem" at all. Perhaps, for some, going to lots of small meets where they are far and away the fastest swimmer gets boring after awhile. Perhaps it is only in those big meets that they get the competition they want.
Perhaps if they all went to all the small meets there would be people complaining about those "ringers" always hogging all the hardware. There ARE people in Masters who think that those who have an extensive background should be judged separately from the rest.
There are plenty of swimmers that only compete right after they age up (and perhaps only in big meets), yet they train year-round the rest of the time. I don't perceive this to be unfair to anybody. I don't perceive it as a "problem" at all. Perhaps, for some, going to lots of small meets where they are far and away the fastest swimmer gets boring after awhile. Perhaps it is only in those big meets that they get the competition they want.
Perhaps if they all went to all the small meets there would be people complaining about those "ringers" always hogging all the hardware. There ARE people in Masters who think that those who have an extensive background should be judged separately from the rest.
