SUPERTEAM changes?

Lisa, Did the committee consider having fixed team sizes like for the Olympics and World Championships where each country is limited to something like 26 men and women? Obviously the team limit shouldn't limit the number of participants but the number of swimmers whose results count in team competition. If there were a few different team sizes all the teams could compete on a truly level playing field. Some clubs could field multiple teams to maximize participation. In general there will be no system that can divide teams with a variable number of members that avoids team sizes differing by one ending up in different catagories while placing teams with much greater variance in numbers in the same catagory. And any competition involving teams of differing sizes is necessarily "unfair". The obvious drawback to fixed team sizes is that the number of swimmers from a club probably won't match one of the sizes exactly resulting in some swimmers being "left out". If you allow a club to field multiple teams and have one team size that is small, say four swimmers, then this can be minimized. The fact is that relays are fixed at four swimmers so this issue already comes up. Perhaps the odd swimmers will even be motivated to recruit some other swimmers from their club that otherwise wouldn't attend. There you go, a truly fair solution. This suggestion was completely ignored in the other superteam thread.

Lisa, Did the committee consider having fixed team sizes like for the Olympics and World Championships where each country is limited to something like 26 men and women? Obviously the team limit shouldn't limit the number of participants but the number of swimmers whose results count in team competition. If there were a few different team sizes all the teams could compete on a truly level playing field. Some clubs could field multiple teams to maximize participation. In general there will be no system that can divide teams with a variable number of members that avoids team sizes differing by one ending up in different catagories while placing teams with much greater variance in numbers in the same catagory. And any competition involving teams of differing sizes is necessarily "unfair". The obvious drawback to fixed team sizes is that the number of swimmers from a club probably won't match one of the sizes exactly resulting in some swimmers being "left out". If you allow a club to field multiple teams and have one team size that is small, say four swimmers, then this can be minimized. The fact is that relays are fixed at four swimmers so this issue already comes up. Perhaps the odd swimmers will even be motivated to recruit some other swimmers from their club that otherwise wouldn't attend. There you go, a truly fair solution. This suggestion was completely ignored in the other superteam thread.