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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I thought it was better to start back competively in an older age group. The 40 to 44 was even more competitive so I entered in the 45 to 49. But there are a lot of women round 48 and 49 that have good times. And probably next year the 50 to 54 age group will also get more competitive because of these people. The age groups in the 30's are the hardest as far as times are concern. Those in the 40's and early 50's are harder because of the number of people in them.
I thought it was better to start back competively in an older age group. The 40 to 44 was even more competitive so I entered in the 45 to 49. But there are a lot of women round 48 and 49 that have good times. And probably next year the 50 to 54 age group will also get more competitive because of these people. The age groups in the 30's are the hardest as far as times are concern. Those in the 40's and early 50's are harder because of the number of people in them.
