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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Former Member
i'm a newbie to the post, so here goes...
Words I have heard and said often with masters swimmers is that on any given day there is probably someone out there that is BIGGER, BETTER and STRONGER...so the thing is to focus on your own goals and those things that are within your control.
Some people are just as frustrated winning a national event but not doing their best (time) as those that are frustrated trying to break into the top 10 every year.
As for the once every five years swimmers...I think of it very opposite of the posts. As we get older, family. job and other committments can pull people any from the pool and masters swimming but rather than lose that swimmer forever once every five years they rekindle their passion for swimming and come back to the sport to inspire and amaze a lot of us.
I always like to think of Competition bringing out the best in me. And competing against faster swimmers always does that for me.
i'm a newbie to the post, so here goes...
Words I have heard and said often with masters swimmers is that on any given day there is probably someone out there that is BIGGER, BETTER and STRONGER...so the thing is to focus on your own goals and those things that are within your control.
Some people are just as frustrated winning a national event but not doing their best (time) as those that are frustrated trying to break into the top 10 every year.
As for the once every five years swimmers...I think of it very opposite of the posts. As we get older, family. job and other committments can pull people any from the pool and masters swimming but rather than lose that swimmer forever once every five years they rekindle their passion for swimming and come back to the sport to inspire and amaze a lot of us.
I always like to think of Competition bringing out the best in me. And competing against faster swimmers always does that for me.
