Why is it that Masters level swimmers who participate in USS sanctioned meets under a separate USS registration can't have their times automatically qualify for USMS rankings and USMS National records? What is the reason for this separation? The rules with USMS and USS seem parallel enough to allow USS swims to qualify under USMS ranking and records. Do we care if elite older swimmers in their 30's (say Gary Hall Jr.) effectively end up owning the USMS national record by default? Is USMS afraid of merging to closely with USS? Why wouldn't USMS want to recognize the true best performance by and old man/women in the pool regardless of whether their card said USS or USMS on it?
John Smith
John,
The simple answer is because USMS chooses to keep records of what its members accomplish. It is just like USA Swimming doesn't keep track of open records anymore (I believe this to be true). It comes down to what do you have time to do and if you don't have time to do everything then what do you skip. There is/was an organization trying to promote swimming among adults that was keeping track of records for 1 year age groups. Nice idea maybe but it gets ridiculous at some point. I could probably be the record holder in many events for those born the same day as I was. As it was, the closest I got to a real record was to have the time that had to be beat to have the SCM 50 *** record (30-34) when USMS recognized SCM records.
Leo
John,
The simple answer is because USMS chooses to keep records of what its members accomplish. It is just like USA Swimming doesn't keep track of open records anymore (I believe this to be true). It comes down to what do you have time to do and if you don't have time to do everything then what do you skip. There is/was an organization trying to promote swimming among adults that was keeping track of records for 1 year age groups. Nice idea maybe but it gets ridiculous at some point. I could probably be the record holder in many events for those born the same day as I was. As it was, the closest I got to a real record was to have the time that had to be beat to have the SCM 50 *** record (30-34) when USMS recognized SCM records.
Leo
