Citizenship/Residence & Records

Rob: What I meant to say is that it is greatly discouraged to hold memberships in two FINA member federations. Many years ago I knew a swimmer who was contacted by the USMS Top Ten Chair because they had swims in the Top Ten for both the countries of the USA and Canada. They were told to choose one federation in the future. I never said there is a policy in USMS. "The USMS registration card does not have language forbidding registration if you are registered with another FINA federation." Perhaps Walt Reid or June Krauser can shed some light on this. I was on the FINA site a couple of weeks ago and they have policy that supports this but I am not sure if Masters swimming was included in the policy and it just covers the other aquatic disciplines. It would seem to me if that we have a policy that discouages this here in USMS for LMSC's and Clubs, why we would not support this same restriction for dual membership in FINA member federations. I think this issue should be addressed especially with the 2006 Masters World Swimming Championships next year. I personally talked to Rowdy Gaines at the 1992 FINA World Championships and asked him why he represented Japan in 1991. He said at the time he was in Japan he wanted to swim in a Masters meet there but was unregistered in USMS and had to get a Japanese registration to swim in their meet. All of his World Records for that year were listed as Japan. I know it would be impossible to marshall because all of the FINA federations register swimmers differently and have separate data bases. They also have different eligibility requirements as learned from Paul Smith with his experiences this past year in Australia. I wonder if there will be massive recruiting going on before the meet at Stanford. Just think, you could contact the best masters swimmers in the world and break all of the available relay records. Right now from what your saying Rob, this could be done and is perfectly legal.

Rob: What I meant to say is that it is greatly discouraged to hold memberships in two FINA member federations. Many years ago I knew a swimmer who was contacted by the USMS Top Ten Chair because they had swims in the Top Ten for both the countries of the USA and Canada. They were told to choose one federation in the future. I never said there is a policy in USMS. "The USMS registration card does not have language forbidding registration if you are registered with another FINA federation." Perhaps Walt Reid or June Krauser can shed some light on this. I was on the FINA site a couple of weeks ago and they have policy that supports this but I am not sure if Masters swimming was included in the policy and it just covers the other aquatic disciplines. It would seem to me if that we have a policy that discouages this here in USMS for LMSC's and Clubs, why we would not support this same restriction for dual membership in FINA member federations. I think this issue should be addressed especially with the 2006 Masters World Swimming Championships next year. I personally talked to Rowdy Gaines at the 1992 FINA World Championships and asked him why he represented Japan in 1991. He said at the time he was in Japan he wanted to swim in a Masters meet there but was unregistered in USMS and had to get a Japanese registration to swim in their meet. All of his World Records for that year were listed as Japan. I know it would be impossible to marshall because all of the FINA federations register swimmers differently and have separate data bases. They also have different eligibility requirements as learned from Paul Smith with his experiences this past year in Australia. I wonder if there will be massive recruiting going on before the meet at Stanford. Just think, you could contact the best masters swimmers in the world and break all of the available relay records. Right now from what your saying Rob, this could be done and is perfectly legal.