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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Paul- I expect John to weigh in with new ammunition after this meet- that is, if he didn't explode into pieces from indignation after the relay you mentioned.
Seriously, from following this meet, event by event on the Omega site, I was flabbergasted by the sheer numbers of foreign-sounding names (I also realize that is no sure criteria of who is really American or not). As a fan I believe they contributed to the quality of the meet (Super Simon!) but I take the point that they change the very nature of the meet from what it once was.
As has been pointed out previously in this long-simmering debate (yes, I admit to trying to set off John) there are a broad range of types of scholarships & varieties of universities participating that would make the scholarship issue a quagmire, how about this: if this is a really important issue then only American citizens (or legal immigrants, I guess) could score points in the meet. That would circumvent the scholarship issue. Just a thought, any way...I'll sit back and slug back some rich Canadian brewskis and await the return of GoodSmith to the debate.
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Former Member
Paul- I expect John to weigh in with new ammunition after this meet- that is, if he didn't explode into pieces from indignation after the relay you mentioned.
Seriously, from following this meet, event by event on the Omega site, I was flabbergasted by the sheer numbers of foreign-sounding names (I also realize that is no sure criteria of who is really American or not). As a fan I believe they contributed to the quality of the meet (Super Simon!) but I take the point that they change the very nature of the meet from what it once was.
As has been pointed out previously in this long-simmering debate (yes, I admit to trying to set off John) there are a broad range of types of scholarships & varieties of universities participating that would make the scholarship issue a quagmire, how about this: if this is a really important issue then only American citizens (or legal immigrants, I guess) could score points in the meet. That would circumvent the scholarship issue. Just a thought, any way...I'll sit back and slug back some rich Canadian brewskis and await the return of GoodSmith to the debate.
