Nationals Relays

Few of us are familar with the inner workings of FINA so can you explain to me why they would not to compete as "countries" vs. "clubs"? I dont know. I would guess that Masters has somewhat established itself before FINA came on the scene. Masters started about 1970 and the first FINA World Masters Championships was about 1984, so maybe they just went with the established order. Masters is supposed to be about fun, fitness and competition, not about international competition between federations. If it was about competition between federations then you would have most likely have a fewer competitors. How would one qualify for a federation team? Could be a problem. If they left it the current way, then have everyone eligible for a relay team, who is going to do the selection? I have seen Pacific Masters Coaches pulling their hair out making up relays teams, could you imagine trying to put together a team when you have 2000 swimmers to select from to put together dozens of teams - think age groups, gender and strokes and all the permutations to select a fast team. Anyway just a guess. michael

Then why do they bother listing the country of origin next to the name of the person owning each world record ? John Smith

Mr. Goodsmith: Go over to the FINA website at www.fina.org and link to the rules. You might find your answer there. Last week the site was down and now its up. There is a big difference between the Masters Swimming rules and the Swimming rules and appears to be a lot of inconstancy, especially with the eligibility of swimmers from federations and rules of representations and citizenship.

FINA General Rules apply to ALL aquatic disciplines under FINA jursidiction, including Masters and should be followed a closely as posssible. Here is my spin on the General Rules as they relate to International Relations ( ie: foreign swimmers ) www.fina.org/.../rules_gr1.htm GR 2.1 elevates USMS Nationals to International status. An exception would be USMS Nationals competition held in yards. GR 2.2 is lacking in clarity as it only refers to clubs, but since clubs are a collection of individuals it should follow that individuals shall not be admitted by a Member while simultaneously being affiliated to another Member. In other words you have to give up your affiliation with one Member in order to become affiliated with another. Multiple affiliation is not permitted. GR 2.3 is pretty clear. You have to actually live/reside in the country in order to be affiliated to the Member or apply to FINA under GR 2.7 for change of affiliation. GR 2.4 is a non issued since in USMS we do not select or field a National Team, but if we did all the General Rules would come into play but we can't because of Master General Rule MGR 3. GR 2.5 is also a non issue as it follows GR 2.4. GR 2.6 is also a non issue as it follows GR 2.4. GR 2.7 stipulates that you must apply to FINA and receive approval in order to change affiliation if such change does not fall within the parameters set out in the foregoing General Rules.

I am not sure where this thread is going but here is my spin on the General Rules as it applies to the XI FINA World Masters Championships. Let me comment on hornhead's spin: GR 2.2 is lacking in clarity as it only refers to clubs, but since clubs are a collection of individuals it should follow that individuals shall not be admitted by a Member while simultaneously being affiliated to another Member. In other words you have to give up your affiliation with one Member in order to become affiliated with another. Multiple affiliation is not permitted. The Rule says "A Member shall not admit to its membership any club affiliated to another member." A member is a federation such as US Aquatic Sports. A club is a normal club, so what it says is that USMS (a member of USAS) shall not admit a club that is a member of Canadian Swimming. There IS NO EXTENSION. If it is not in the rules it does not apply. You do not have to give up your affiliation with one Federation to become affiliated with another. Clubs would, but individuals do not. GR 2.3 is pretty clear. You have to actually live/reside in the country in order to be affiliated to the Member or apply to FINA under GR 2.7 for change of affiliation. The rule says A competitor of one Member joining a club of another Member and participating in the compeitions of the latter shall be regarded as coming with in the jurisdiction of the latter So a competitor who is member of the Swiss Federation joins a club of the US Federation. At that point the competitor is under the jurisdiction of the US federation. The rule says nother about actually live/reside in the country in order to be affiliated. Another example, you are a member of USMS and join the Peace Corps. You are in Lesotho and in order to swim in their meets you have to be a member of the Lesotho Swimming Association. When you swim in Masaru you are under the rules of the Lesotho Swimming Association, when the swimmer returns to the United States, the swimmer is under the rules of USMS if the competitor is swimming for a USMS club. The competitor could also swim for the Lesotho club. GR 7 only applies to swimmers with sports nationalities, it does not apply to Masters swimmers. Please review MGR 3 Individual entries shall only be accepted from persons represnting clubs. No swimmer or team my be disignated as representing a country or Federation. That is my view, but if anyone has specific questions, I will be meeting with the FINA Masters Committee in November to discuss many things affecting the World Championships. Also if you think that this is incorrect, and want to file an protest a person belonging to dual federations at the World Championships, you have also include the equalivant of 100 Swiss Francs (about $81.00) with your protest. The matter would be decided by the FINA Masters Committee. michael moore, president Local Organizing Committee XI FINA World Master Championships Stanford, California

There are people now who are affiliated with different federations. They meet the qualifications for joining both federations. I believe some federations require residency or citizenship. Some like ours, do not require either. From an operational point of view, all the LOC is going to look for is a Master's card from a FINA federation. But I will ask. michael

I've had quite a number of conversatons about countries swimming against countries with USMS swimmers since the US was awarded the Worlds as well as some folks in Australia when we went to their Nationals this past March. In general almost everyone I've spoken with did not know that FINA rules do not allow one to swim for thir respctive country and have to compete for their clubs. Also, almost 100% felt that a competition between countires at an international meet such as worlds made a lot of sense and would elevate the level of competition as well as media interest. So I guess the bottom line is wether USMS and our general membership thinks this would be worth pursuing with FINA long term?

Paul (I think!), I wasn't trying to be pissy or anything... I do understand all of what you're saying and do agree on some points you make. I just wish it was really easy for USMS to come up with some hard and fast rules, regulations, whatever you want to call 'em. Apparently, our language gets in the way time and time again. It seems USMS, and our own local Pacific Masters, paints itself into corners with too many rules, rules not worded correctly, etc. It's really quite frustrating. For example(s), we can't even figure out an efficient way for people to swim the 800 AND the 1500! We call our end of the season meet a "championship" when it's far from it. There are no qualifying times, etc. While I do agree that masters should include as many as possible- I think some definitions need defining. This relay issue is just one of many things that needs to be defined. Again, I certainly did not mean to come across "ickily" :)

Paul: I am not sure where you want to go with this. But let me first respond to a couple of things that you said. I have no idea how most countries Masters club system works. I do not know if all the Masters for some countries belong so the same club (like CMS) or if there are many clubs with in a country. When I was in Riccione, it looked like Great Britain had many clubs - they had different clubs had different sweat suits. I also saw some countries like Peru, Brazil and Chile all wearing the same model sweat suit. I only offer that as there may be only one club in those countries. If you wanted to have international competition by country for Masters how would that be run? each country sends a national team? or that you only have national relays teams? or do you have a national relay team and club relay teams. If you did that who would choose the national team? What about those who always swam with a club and would want to continue to swim for that club? The XI FINA World Masters Championships is the first championships in a long time that has had more than mixed relays. Why don't we see how it goes before making other plans. (I am sure that CMS can field a host of very fast relays teams- and being chairman of Pacific I can only dream of putting together relays teams made of Pacific Masters Swimmers - I think it would be a dream team - but nightmare putting it together.). michael

Michael Question for FINA Masters Committee. Can a Masters competitor be affiliated with more than one Member federation at one time and if so, under what circumstances?