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"
The dream of owning a record does not entitle you to have a record. Maybe this ringer had/has the same dream and did what it took to break the record. It just so happens it took him five years to accomplish his goal.
The nice thing about Masters is that you can compete at your whim without the strict requirement placed upon us during our youth (or yute, as I understand New Yorkers to say). Also, no where does it say that membership requires support. All that is required is a check. That is all that many of us want out of Masters. We want to swim and have fun.
I have a dream - that I will stop getting up at 5:17 am to swim and still be in shape. Alas, I tried that and my belly became a nightmare.
The dream of owning a record does not entitle you to have a record. Maybe this ringer had/has the same dream and did what it took to break the record. It just so happens it took him five years to accomplish his goal.
The nice thing about Masters is that you can compete at your whim without the strict requirement placed upon us during our youth (or yute, as I understand New Yorkers to say). Also, no where does it say that membership requires support. All that is required is a check. That is all that many of us want out of Masters. We want to swim and have fun.
I have a dream - that I will stop getting up at 5:17 am to swim and still be in shape. Alas, I tried that and my belly became a nightmare.
