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"
Now to Tom’s concerns,
I'm not sure what you are going with your listed concerns. But, to the first point - "a fastest time is not necessarily a fastest time anymore". It never was the fastest time. USMS records are just that ,records set by and maintained for United States Masters Swimmers. USMS records are set by USMS registered members who compete in events sanctioned or recognized by USMS. This may be a very parochial view and it obviously excludes performances by foreign athletes and other 19+ swimmers. However, it does not preclude someone from compiling, maintaining, and publishing other fastest times. And to take this point to the absurd, if we really want a record to reflect the fastest swimming time, I heard that a dolphin at Sea World in Orlando, swims the 1650 in 2:04 (even faster than Jim McConica).
As to the question of credibility (having just blown mine), USMS publishes USMS records and I don’t think there are any other claims attached to these are records beyond that . In similar fashion, I think that the YMCA publishes YMCA Masters records, which are for the most part slower or equal to USMS records. The other point credibility has to do with verification. Events sanctioned or recognized by USMS are supposed to conform to certain standards to insure a level playing field for all participants.
To your second point, I think you answered your own concern. To be an “official” Masters swimmer, you need to register with your national governing body, and for those of us in the USA it is USMS through our LMSC's.
Now to Tom’s concerns,
I'm not sure what you are going with your listed concerns. But, to the first point - "a fastest time is not necessarily a fastest time anymore". It never was the fastest time. USMS records are just that ,records set by and maintained for United States Masters Swimmers. USMS records are set by USMS registered members who compete in events sanctioned or recognized by USMS. This may be a very parochial view and it obviously excludes performances by foreign athletes and other 19+ swimmers. However, it does not preclude someone from compiling, maintaining, and publishing other fastest times. And to take this point to the absurd, if we really want a record to reflect the fastest swimming time, I heard that a dolphin at Sea World in Orlando, swims the 1650 in 2:04 (even faster than Jim McConica).
As to the question of credibility (having just blown mine), USMS publishes USMS records and I don’t think there are any other claims attached to these are records beyond that . In similar fashion, I think that the YMCA publishes YMCA Masters records, which are for the most part slower or equal to USMS records. The other point credibility has to do with verification. Events sanctioned or recognized by USMS are supposed to conform to certain standards to insure a level playing field for all participants.
To your second point, I think you answered your own concern. To be an “official” Masters swimmer, you need to register with your national governing body, and for those of us in the USA it is USMS through our LMSC's.
