How do you feel about copying the kid's swimming method of organizing Masters by time standards??
For example, there would be A, B and C times for all ages and both sexes. Local meets would be either A, A/B, B, B/C, C or OPEN.
There could be Championships for any of these categories at the LMSC level. To go to Regionals would require having made a new category, the Regional time. National entrantrants would come from the Regional pool or perhaps from the "A" pool.
I'm ambivalent on this as it seems too unwieldy at this early stage of our development but does answer the needs of folks who are looking for the mythical level playing field.
Emmett; we could still have the "Mediocre" Champs as an extra event (suggested in your earlier post). Since there are 26 letters in the alphabet, we could go an even larger number of categories with an ever declining number of swimmers. (Avoiding, of course, the politically incorrect "F" time standard.)
Heck, I can see a day when EVERYONE wins something !
Former Member
Lord, Bert. Did you do this on purpose? Do you know what Ion's brain is doing right now?!?! We are all going to pay. Let the fun begin with this one...
I think it would be good for Ion's age group men 40 to 44 since they have sometimes over 2,00 swimmers in an event in the United States. However, do this to the older age groups and they just not enough people t do it. As a kid, I use to swim A Breaststroke and Butterfly and B freestyle. Now I would be B breastroke and C all the other three strokes. By the way Ion fits his state California where 21 percent of the population is born somewhere else than the States.
Bert -
I think it is an interesting concept. But I though USMS was happy with the functionality of the existing system? You can swim three if you have not qualified, and 6 if you have...
There are some local meets around here that have 'novice' events. These are usually 50's, and a great introduction to racing for those with no experience. They are sort of like USS 'C' events. I think it would be a great idea for most open masters meets to include such events.
The one change that I REALLY wish could be made is to add a third (short course meters) championship to the calender. The more meet options we all have the better, plus the traditionl "season" for SCM championship (December) could e much easier for people to travel to a meet than August (for LCM).
I have no understanding of how USMS sets their calenders, however I would think a "logical" process would be to set dates over a 5 year period (for nationals only). This would allow the LMSCs to view the Chmapionship schedule and attempt to set dates for regional/state championships around nationals.
I'm sure I'm going to far in hoping to see some cooperation/communication between LMSCs which would attempt to set their championship meets up in such a way that would allow swimmers to try and make more than one, rather than have them on the same weekends (yes, I understand the challenges, costs, etc. of getting pool space but at least it would be a good goal).
In summary, I hope someone out their on the championship committee will put forth a proposal to have a December SCM nationals!!
I think A, B & C times could be good thing. For those of us who are not a threat to make the Top Ten list, we have precious few objective measures of how "good" we are. If USMS can come up with some metric or formula that is widely accepted to generate meaningful time standards, and keep it updated (say annually), these times could be used for setting goals. (Or simply bragging points with which we can bore our family and friends.)
I would not be in favor of using them to set entry conditions (excepting, of course, the current system for USMS Nationals). There are simply too few meets, and too few people entering a given event in a given age group, to even think about breaking them up into "A", "B" or "C" events. (Of course, whatever the local organizing committeee and meet director want to do for their meet is none of my business.)
Matt
Well Bert, at last count there we're 40,000+ USMS swimmers and based on the responses to my suggestion it looks like you and I will be the only ones going:D How about all fly events?
You can have the 200, 400 & 800, I get the 25, 50 & 100. Hey, it's our championship right? We can do whatever we want and I want "Australian Rules"!
Paul
I'll be there. Especially if you continue to swim the 200 back and Sam Perry does the 50. We could compromise and all do the 100.
Maybe you should become a rep of your LMSC and present the idea personally.
