Mr Goodsmith:
You bring up some valid points but from my experience at international meets the other FINA member nations and there swimmers who represent them don't feel that way. By the way it was my international friends that said USMS appears to be Imperialist, Controlling, Superior, and a Decisive Power regarding this behavior not I. It was my perception that most in USMS did not think this was appropriate. Now there was no USMS or FINA rules violations and it was perfectly legal but the question of ethics and intent of doing this was what was questioned. Points 1 and 2 seem valid points in your thoughts. Point 3, I am not so sure about.
The FINA World Masters Swimming Championships are a different set up than the FINA World Swimming Championships. Individuals swimmers do not go or compete as a single delegation and its not restricted to the fastest swimmers qualifing for the meet from a single delegation. Until the last couple of Masters World Championships there were not qualifing times and it was open to anyone who was a member of a FINA member delegation.
Rob brought up the MGR 3 rule and I will add that the only difference between the way we run USMS Nationals and the FINA World Masters Swimming Championships are run, as far as eligibility is concerned, is that you can't swim Unattached at the world meet and you must swim for a club. So you swim for that Club you would at Nationals and not Team USA like the National Team does. From my understanding, FINA discourages National teams for masters swimming and wants you to swim for the club that you represent in National competition. They do not look at this like the Olympics and they don't have the same guidelines that the Olympic teams with the swimmers and coaches follow
I see nothing wrong with your points 1 and 2 because most of the people you are talking about live in your LMSC and are part of your team or super team as some have referred. In fact I know about Team Rhodenbaugh and I saw the article in Swim magazine about Mook and how he got the family together for the Nationals in Indy in 2004. And Rowdy is always a welcome presence at our meets and I am glad you got him to swim on your relay at Nationals when you guys broke the National Record at 1:24.05. In fact I had the honor of having lunch with the man at the World Championship trials and we talked about you and your evil twin. Just to show you how humble Rowdy is, he said he hoped he did a good enough relay lead off towards the record. Fine gentleman and I have been holding myself back because on the other posts they were knocking him as a TV comentator. I think he is one of the best if not the best in the business. His longtivity speaks for itself.
Its point 3 that people will question. Having people leave their local teams who they work out with day after day, year after year, will have people upset about forming a National team. If everyone does this nationwide it will hurt the local teams trying to form relays for the World meet. This is what people object to. There is no scoring or medal counts so relays would be the thing people would be upset about. I was asked by my foreign friends to name one foreign country that practiced what was done in the USA and I couldn't name any.
About the only way this would be acceptable to the masses is for FINA to run the World Masters Championships like the Worlds in Montreal and Spain in 2003. Have teams from member delegations and not by clubs. Then I think the controversy would go a way.
Well..... I guess the issue comes down to relays and trying to set world records in various age groups. It's obviously easier to attain these times with more faster people on a given team. If FINA didn't have world records or USMS didn't have National records for relays then there would be much less incentive to try and assemble a better faster group of individuals.
I am curious though. Since what is being proposed is essentially a voluntary effort by the individual to sign up for a team with better swimmers and no monetary design, how does this truly affect other swimmers and contribute to Imperialist, Controlling, and Decisive Power of USMS? Swim on your own local team if you want to.... or swim with a larger faster group of individuals if you want to.
Honestly, Frank, its just masters swimming. This doesn't sound like a big issue to me. People should be able to swim casually with their local team or join a faster team.... big deal. USMS should oblige and try to fill the need of both types of swimmers. What does it really matter if a bunch of old farts get together on a larger faster team at Worlds to break a bunch of old people's world/national records and drink beers together. You want to know how it will benefit USMS..... well, here's a few thoughts.
1. Former swimmers will be recruited to swim and workout a bit again to get ready. Older names from nationals long ago may come out of the woodwork to see their friends and have a good time on a relay one more time. This represents new membership and increased noteriety within USMS. Older swimmers have a great deal of experience to share with other beginning mastser swimmers at these meets.
2. Bigger names in the sport from years past are ALWAYS great to have at USMS nationals and World events. I nagged Rowdy to be on the relay at USMS Nationals in Indy because he's a great guy, a friend, and a huge figure in the sport. It helps promote the sport within the sport and people love to see him and others like him return occasionally for dip in the pool. We laughed a lot at that meet with Susan Von der Lippe (Rapp), The Rhodenbaugh family etc..... Reunion type events are a positive way to sell USMS to the general public. Seeing old familiar faces and general fitness are the BIGGEST reason I do masters swimming.
3. Better National and World relay records will be set if better swimmers are allowed to swim together on a team if they chose so. Better record times are an improvement by themselves and can help spawn others to do the same.
John Smith
John hinted at an idea that I had:
Swim for your club in individual races.
All relays will be swum as countries. USMS will pool its best swimmers for relays, the Japanese federation will do the same, as well as Germany, Britain and so forth. It would take lots of relay coordinators to get it all situated, but it could happen.
That would mean each swimmer interested in doing relays on that special relay day at worlds should submit their best 50 times to the relay coordinator.
I bet other countries are thinking the same thing. And I'm sure some are trying to recruit fast swimmers for their team to get fast relays.
The clostest I will ever come to world records is filing the applications when they are broken at meets that I direct. That being said, I think it would be a lot more fun to represent my country at an international meet than the local group I swim with. True, if the FINA rule were to one day change to allow swimmers to represent their countries in international competition, relay records would get faster. But, is that necessarily a bad thing? I find it quite inspiring to see a quartet of swimmers go faster than any their age have ever before. Other than the fact I am not that much farther from being on a record setting relay, would it be bad for adult swimming around the world if records got faster?
I can see why people will get up set with recruiting faster swimmer to join their team for this purpose, but if we didn't have to leave our local teams to swim together internationally, would the same objections still stand?
Changing a FINA rule is not going to happen overnight and most likely will not be initiated by the US. Still, we do have a representative to FINA in Nancy Ridout. If anyone can build the coalition needed to pass something like this, Nancy would be the one.
I understand what you're saying Skip but the people that are unhappy about it aren't the people who desire to leave their team and swim for a faster relay team. It seems they are imposing their frustrations on people that would want to leave on their own accord. And mind you, this is only for world or international competitions.
What do you think of this as a possible middle ground. USMS could allow a sort of dual registration for individuals who want to represent their country at worlds or international competitions and swim on faster relays. This way you retain your local USMS registration to swim all year with your local team including nationals and then when you go to worlds you swim for a national type of team.
Getting back to your "intent" question. It may be the intent of USMS to discourage a national team based on FINA guidelines, but USMS did not disallow it in the rule book. I don't think anyone is trying to hide anything by recruiting a "super team" for relays at worlds. It is what it is..... a better way to get faster people together. People who don't want anything to do with it don't have to join. People who do want to participate should be allowed to join and frankly, USMS should support both options.
Remember, no one is doing this to piss of local USMS clubs or non elite swimmers. People who want to do this want to independently leave their local club for a limited time period to swim on these relays and come back.
John Smith
Well...... the problem with the team I would rope together is that all the people would be between the ages 40-45.
Most of them would only want to be part of it to punish me in some sort of way and get back at me .... which I suppose is a good enough reason as any to join...... :-)
John Smith
How much for Ande, Jeff, and the Good Smith?
originally posted by Keather
Let's see.......probably somewhere around one or two cow chips I suppose....LOL!!......alright now.....just a little friendly j/k of course.
