Foreign swimmers training in the U.S.

Dima: If you want to talk about foreigners who come here, it is a well known fact that these immigrants send a significant amount of money back to their families at home. Inflow of American money is massive in foreign countries from families with US workers. It is absolutely no hit on the Russian ecomony especially when you consider these folks make more money here than in Russia, send a significant percentage home and are EMPLOYED in their desired field. How can this be any detriment to Russia? If Russia feels they are losing so much, close the borders back down and realize the incredible benefits of an underemployed white collar class. I don't understand what you mean by Mexican dishwashers. I have no knowledge of the dishwashing profession. I can assure you there are huge differences in wages paid to foreign workers versus US workers, for skilled professions.

Citizenship is a heck of a lot more than paperwork. It's very difficult to follow this thread. We start talking about foreign swimmers in the US, which was enjoyable. I was trying to point out that foreign skilled (read white collar) labor is substantially cheaper than US labor. I also know there are many companies that offer foreign labor in the US for much cheaper than standard US labor rates. I have no expertise in the area of Russian swimmers in the UK or foreign dishwashers, nor what that has to do with US college scholarships. You are awfully tough on America, which is the best thing going.

My opinion is no one is entitled to an athletic scholarship. The scholarships should go to the fastest and most talented athletes regardless of their country of origin.

My opinion is that I don't think there will be any changes in the future regarding foreign swimmers that attend US Universities, receiving athletic scholarships, and compete at the NCAA's. The swimmers do benefit from US coaching, training with US swimmers, and competing in high level meet competitions. Then went the World Championships or Olympics come along they represent there home countries instead of the US where they train. This has been going on for 60 years and I don't see any change because of the history of this being done and no one having an issue with it. The NCAA, AAU, USA swimming actually create opportunties for this with US Open Competitions thru the years. The first swimmer that I can remember was from Australia and swam for the University of Michigan back in the early 50's. His name was John Davies and he was an Olympic gold medalist. Rumor has it that he wanted to swim for the USA but the USOC did not want him to do so. He became a US citizen and is a Federal Court Judge. You can read about him at www.johndavies.com This is an example of someone that could not swim for the USA. Another example is Lenny Krayzelburg. He was not a US citizen when he started training with Mark Schubert at USC but became one and actually swam for the USA in the Olympics. These are 2 examples and I am sure there are countless others like this. I have read so many stories about swimmers with dual citizenship and some swim for the USA and some don't. When I think of great swimmers in history that have swam for USA colleges but not the USA, the list is big. For example: Murray Rose, Jon Konrads, Kevin Berry, Juan Bello, Hans Fassncaht, Gunnar Larson, Santiago Esteva, David Wilke, Jonny Skinner, Mark Kerry, Anthony Nesty, and Martin Zubero just to name a few. Almosty every famous NCAA coach has recruited foreign swimmers and it was never an issue until recently. Now I know a lot of these people above were before the Title 9 days and there were more scholarships available so the % of foreign athletes was probably smaller. But I think that we have done it so long that I think it will be hard to change. Plus the USA has been so strong in swimming than any other country, that it never became an issue. The only way I see it changing is that more foreign swimmers will go professional and go on the World Cup circuit. But if the coaches have skills to recruit those swimmers than I see it not changing. I think its a fact of life that foreign athletes like American sports programs. Look at the NBA and you see it happening there. I think the San Antonio Spurs have 5 foreign players on there squad.

Craiglll: I just went to the ASU swim site because I was curious what the % of foreign swimmers were to the total team. On the men's team there was 1 foreigner out of 26 on the roster and he was a freshman. He didn't look to have significant international experience. On the women's team 2 out of 27 were foreign swimmers and both of those swimmers swam in the Olympics for there countries. Agnes Kovacs swam for Hungary and was the gold medalist in 2000 in the 200 *** but got 4th at this Olympics. The other swimmer was Florencia Szigeti of Argentia who swam two events. In the 100 Free took 28th with a :56.71 and in the 200 Free took 25th with a 2:03.29. Significant? I don't think so because there are a lot of USA womens swimmers that could easily do those times. On the other hand Kovacs is a world class swimmer and has been for a long time and was on par with Beard and Kirk thru the years.

The correct link for John Davies is www.johngdavies.com

Originally posted by aquageek Tom and I have intellectual differences on this, which is fine, but you are flat wrong in your assertion. The sole reason US companies outsorce to foreign nations (India, China, Russia, Brazil) is the labor cost, not the brain power. We have the brains here. A US resource costs anywhere from 2.5 (India) to 8 times (Russian, China, Brazil) as much as these foreign sources (white collar labor). I deal with this every single day from a funding perspective and I assure you there is no reason other than economics driving this. And, you are also incorrect that these outsourced folks are contributing solely to the US. It's very lucrative for the home countries, check out India. Countries are lining up to provide cheaper and cheaper labor to realize the vast economic benefits to the home countries economy. It's also completely off-topic. The notion of outsourcing to cheap labor pools is not the same as foreign swimmers on US scholarships. Yes, GEEK, it could be off topic, but it is still the question of fair or not fair, which relates to the original topic being fair or not!You cannot draw the perfect line and that is what I am aiming at... GEEK, talking about our brains here, I am not saying you do not have them here, but a lot of very bright people from Russia came here to work and it is not contributing Russia in any way, moreover it is a hit on a Russian economy, and it is not always labor cost, a lot of those people are paide HUGE!And then, just check out the medical field:how many Indian doctors do you see?Are they paid any less than American ones?I do not think so.Unless you are talking saving on labor cost a-la mexican dishwashers and such there really is not much saving there if you go inot white-collar world ...

The Indian physcians who have completed their training and are practicing in the US are usually US citizens. It remains very difficult for foreign medical graduates to stay in this country unless they practice in an underserved area. I believe public universities receive government funding which is derived from tax revenue. There may be limits on the number of scholarships offered to foreign students. The term "mexican dishwasher" could be viewed as offensive.

ok, GEEK, I will give you examples on how a good specialist can contribute to "a new home" and how by losing that specialist the country he moved from loses too.And I will even use swimming as an example!!!Andrey Vorontsov, one of the most brilliant swim coaches Russia had moved to UK to becomethat country's head coach.Since 2000 his swimmers produced 7 UK records, 3 women relay records, 4 junior records, 2 open water records.His swimmer Robert Francis got silver at 2004 worlds and 2003 Europian championship(both SCM) in 400IM.His swimer Alan Bircher is a frequent marathon medal swimmer... Then there's Aleksandr Seleznev, another great soviet coach, who played a major role in success of Russian(or then CIS) swimmers in Barcelona in 1992.Well he went on to first become the head coach of the national team of Egypt.Under his command his swimmers won the junior all-African championship and then placed second in the main all-african swimming championship, success never known to Egyptian swimming.His swimmer Tamer Zenhum produced a 22.25 50 m freestyle, second time in the world back then (1995).Then Aleksandr moved from Egypt to become one of Croatia's lead coaches and Tamer Zenhum never matched his result again...While in Croatia under Aleksandr's coaching he had Gordan Kozulj to be world and europian champion in backstroke both SCM and LCM 2000-2001, Ante Mashkovich became the europian champ in 50m back in valencia, etc... What I am trying to say here, that it's not that those guys did not have a job back home, they were just not offered the same as in other countries where they contributed a lot and by leaving Russia they sure did not contribute to Russian swimming, and they took their families with them, so their money is not going back to Russia to help its economy...And that is the case with most good specialists who leave Russia(to US or not)...

Originally posted by gull80 The Indian physcians who have completed their training and are practicing in the US are usually US citizens. It remains very difficult for foreign medical graduates to stay in this country unless they practice in an underserved area. I believe public universities receive government funding which is derived from tax revenue. There may be limits on the number of scholarships offered to foreign students. The term "mexican dishwasher" could be viewed as offensive. Well, yeah, they could be US citizens, but at some point they were not, they were the same foreigners...And that is exactly what I am talking about.Today you are a foreigner and tomorrow a US citizen.I am sure noone is whining about Lenny Kraizelburg winning olympic medals for USA, although you might be forgetting that he was the same foreigner(immigrated fromSoviet Union) at some point.