Swimming World top 6 male and females masters for 2006 to be named in April issue.

Hey guys, A few things. First, it is a World award, and second, it is voted on by an international panel. I like the idea of a separate listing included in the article about most mind-blowing swims. I'll have to think about that for next year. To be completely honest, this article probably took the most amount of work to do for anything I've done here so far. It was great fun working on it. The two biggest difficulties were as follows: We only used world records recognized by FINA. When we posted the list of all the world record we had, I had a bunch of e-mails come in talking about different world records. We have to draw the line somewhere, and Phil drew it at FINA-recognized records when he started the top 12 three years ago. The second difficulty is that it is not completely a "2006" award. It is the competitive season encompassing some of 2006 and 2005 - as recognized by FINA. One of the things I am looking to improve for next year and future editions is adding more international Masters swimming experts to the panel. I think we could double the size of the panel and still be able to get this article done by deadline. I'll have to think about the over-45 bias of the award. We had someone in their 20s win this year, but I can see where the talent pool gets smaller and smaller for massive amounts of world records as you get older. If you have any questions, e-mail me. jasonm@swimmingworldmagazine.com

Hey guys, A few things. First, it is a World award, and second, it is voted on by an international panel. I like the idea of a separate listing included in the article about most mind-blowing swims. I'll have to think about that for next year. To be completely honest, this article probably took the most amount of work to do for anything I've done here so far. It was great fun working on it. The two biggest difficulties were as follows: We only used world records recognized by FINA. When we posted the list of all the world record we had, I had a bunch of e-mails come in talking about different world records. We have to draw the line somewhere, and Phil drew it at FINA-recognized records when he started the top 12 three years ago. The second difficulty is that it is not completely a "2006" award. It is the competitive season encompassing some of 2006 and 2005 - as recognized by FINA. One of the things I am looking to improve for next year and future editions is adding more international Masters swimming experts to the panel. I think we could double the size of the panel and still be able to get this article done by deadline. I'll have to think about the over-45 bias of the award. We had someone in their 20s win this year, but I can see where the talent pool gets smaller and smaller for massive amounts of world records as you get older. If you have any questions, e-mail me. jasonm@swimmingworldmagazine.com