There has been a lot of discussion since Athens about foreign swimmers training in the United States. Most of them attend U.S. Universities, receive athletic scholarships, and compete at NCAA's. Some notable examples include Duje Draganja (Cal), Fred Bousquet and Kirsty Coventry (Auburn), Markus Rogan (Stanford), and the South African sprinters (Arizona). Some train in the U.S., but don't compete for a university (Inge de Bruijn). All of these athletes benefit from U.S. coaching, from training with U.S. swimmers, and in some cases, from financial support provided by U.S. entities (athletic scholarships). They all turn around and then win medals for other countries.
A couple questions: 1) What do you think about this arrangement generally? 2) Is it of benefit or detriment to U.S. swimming to have these foreign athletes training and competing here? 3) Should we be giving athletic scholarships, which are a scarce resource in swimming, to foreign athletes who will represent their own countries internationally instead of U.S.-born swimmers who will represent us internationally?
I'm sure there are other issues, but these come directly to mind.
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Former Member
Originally posted by tjburk
If you look at it from another perspective...a foreign country... I can reap the benefits of some of the best training in the world for my Olympic Team...paid for by the team I'm trying to beat. WOW, think about that!
Unless USOC is paying for the scholarships your logic seems a bit off.
On a slightly more interesting note, Swimming Canada seems to have a problem with our athletes leaving the country to train, the theory being that having your best swimmers scattered around the world has a negative impact on the system at home, i.e. if our best swimmers aren't swimming in our programs the other swimmers in our programs aren't benefiting from swimming with our best.
Our best 1500m swimmer went to Australia to train with Hackett instead of staying here where he had no real competition. He made our qualifying time at the Australian trials swimming against Hackett, but missed them at our own trials where he had to race purely against the clock, so he didn't get to go to the Olympics. Now he'll be at the Worlds in Montreal competing for Australia. Oops, I've gone off topic.
Originally posted by tjburk
If you look at it from another perspective...a foreign country... I can reap the benefits of some of the best training in the world for my Olympic Team...paid for by the team I'm trying to beat. WOW, think about that!
Unless USOC is paying for the scholarships your logic seems a bit off.
On a slightly more interesting note, Swimming Canada seems to have a problem with our athletes leaving the country to train, the theory being that having your best swimmers scattered around the world has a negative impact on the system at home, i.e. if our best swimmers aren't swimming in our programs the other swimmers in our programs aren't benefiting from swimming with our best.
Our best 1500m swimmer went to Australia to train with Hackett instead of staying here where he had no real competition. He made our qualifying time at the Australian trials swimming against Hackett, but missed them at our own trials where he had to race purely against the clock, so he didn't get to go to the Olympics. Now he'll be at the Worlds in Montreal competing for Australia. Oops, I've gone off topic.
