This may have been covered before; I'm new here, so I apologize in advance.
I've been cycling rather than swimming for the past 10 years, and I recently got back in the pool as end-of-season cross training. Which of course got me curious about masters programs. I checked out the Masters Nationals psyche sheets and I was really surprised at the lack of depth of the competition.
So heres the question: why do so few swimmers choose to compete after college? In comparison to cycling, or running, it seems there are hardly any swimmers competing at a high level over the age of 22 or so. For example, the mens 30-34 100 m free nationals psyche sheet shows 10 people, ranging from :56 to 1:03! 10 people? Is that because most people don't pre-register? Or are there really only a handful of 30-34 men out there who can go under a minute in the 100m free??
picking a meet like the one at the woodlands is probably not a good indicator of the depth of masters swimming. it is a very small national meet, just over 900 people, i bet mostly because many people were not too keen on swimming outside, in houston, in august...
for example, at the 2005 LCM nationals, there were 23 men in the 30-34 age group. and 12 of them were under a minute...
also, not everyone makes it to the national meet. a much more accurate picture of the actual depth of masters (not neccessarily nationals, but the whole organization) is to check out the previous year's top ten times. that year, it took a 52.42 to be ranked #1 for the year. and a 57.24 to just make the top 10.
picking a meet like the one at the woodlands is probably not a good indicator of the depth of masters swimming. it is a very small national meet, just over 900 people, i bet mostly because many people were not too keen on swimming outside, in houston, in august...
for example, at the 2005 LCM nationals, there were 23 men in the 30-34 age group. and 12 of them were under a minute...
also, not everyone makes it to the national meet. a much more accurate picture of the actual depth of masters (not neccessarily nationals, but the whole organization) is to check out the previous year's top ten times. that year, it took a 52.42 to be ranked #1 for the year. and a 57.24 to just make the top 10.
