It appears that Swimming World came out with the first Top 12 World Masters Swimmers.
Seems a little strange that there are only 2 people under the age of 50 on this list. Is there an age requirement here that we don't know about?
Where is the Evil Paul Smith's name on this list? He sets at least one National or World Record almost every year.
John Smith
White Buffalo:
This is not a list compiled by the organization known as United States Masters Swimming. The list was compiled by Swimming World magazine, which is not affiliated with USMS. Phil Whitten says in his "A Voice for the Sport" column that they first came up with a list of people who broke world records in 2004. That's world records only, no USMS records, which means no short course yards records. Then they consulted experts from Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the U.S., who used objective and subjective criteria to choose the top 12. I am not being critical of the methodology (actually, I think it's a pretty good methodology, considering how enormously difficult a task this), just pointing out that this is not something done by USMS.
White Buffalo:
This is not a list compiled by the organization known as United States Masters Swimming. The list was compiled by Swimming World magazine, which is not affiliated with USMS. Phil Whitten says in his "A Voice for the Sport" column that they first came up with a list of people who broke world records in 2004. That's world records only, no USMS records, which means no short course yards records. Then they consulted experts from Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the U.S., who used objective and subjective criteria to choose the top 12. I am not being critical of the methodology (actually, I think it's a pretty good methodology, considering how enormously difficult a task this), just pointing out that this is not something done by USMS.
