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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If the thread is continuing, I guess so will I. One of the biggest criticisms of my concern is that "since when is a fastest time not a fastest time anymore" The other concern is "how can you have criteria for being an official masters swimmers". Not exact quotes but I think close enough.
Ion got me thinking when he started discussing other swimmers of age who are faster swimmers but perhaps didn't pay the $30.00 masters registration fees and therefore their records can't count. If we are so concerned with the credibility of our records, shouldn't any swimmer over the age of 19 be able to establish a record for masters if they do it at an officiated meet. I am only stating this because it shows that "a fastest time is not necessarily a fastest time anymore"
The second concern "how can you have criteria for being an official masters swimmer" I guess has been answered above. Pay the $30.00 and you get your card and perhaps a record. No one in this thread (except perhaps Ion) believes that there should be any more criteria than this. I guess I do not have an argument here unless someone can help me out.
If the thread is continuing, I guess so will I. One of the biggest criticisms of my concern is that "since when is a fastest time not a fastest time anymore" The other concern is "how can you have criteria for being an official masters swimmers". Not exact quotes but I think close enough.
Ion got me thinking when he started discussing other swimmers of age who are faster swimmers but perhaps didn't pay the $30.00 masters registration fees and therefore their records can't count. If we are so concerned with the credibility of our records, shouldn't any swimmer over the age of 19 be able to establish a record for masters if they do it at an officiated meet. I am only stating this because it shows that "a fastest time is not necessarily a fastest time anymore"
The second concern "how can you have criteria for being an official masters swimmer" I guess has been answered above. Pay the $30.00 and you get your card and perhaps a record. No one in this thread (except perhaps Ion) believes that there should be any more criteria than this. I guess I do not have an argument here unless someone can help me out.
