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
The same people that beat us as kids are also the same people that beat us as adults. The times aren't going to get slower their going to get faster. A women doing a 1:30 in a 100 meter breastroke this year will make the top ten in the 45 to 49. But I bet as a younger group moves in that group, the same person is going to have to do a 1:27 in another 3 years to make the top ten. Matt, I only qualfied in the 50 meter breastroke. If I could swim the 100 meter better than I would have made that. My butterfly is even more off than my breastroke, so I was way far away from qualfying for that. Freestyle, while I have a fair style I don't have the speed I did as a teenager,so I would not make qualfying times there either. Backstroke is my worst stroke and I swim breastroke faster.
The same people that beat us as kids are also the same people that beat us as adults. The times aren't going to get slower their going to get faster. A women doing a 1:30 in a 100 meter breastroke this year will make the top ten in the 45 to 49. But I bet as a younger group moves in that group, the same person is going to have to do a 1:27 in another 3 years to make the top ten. Matt, I only qualfied in the 50 meter breastroke. If I could swim the 100 meter better than I would have made that. My butterfly is even more off than my breastroke, so I was way far away from qualfying for that. Freestyle, while I have a fair style I don't have the speed I did as a teenager,so I would not make qualfying times there either. Backstroke is my worst stroke and I swim breastroke faster.
