where are Nationals in 2009?

I was just messin' with you, Matt. I'll agree. These are some awesome places to visit. No worries. Since I am only 2.5-3 hours drive away, I will most likely attend this meet.

I sometimes fly to Toronto, it takes several hours to get to the airport. They won't let me take all I want to have with me. Then the wait to be boarded, then the flight. Getting out of the airport waiting for baggage big delays. It is a 20 hour day to get from my home and to my destination. And I do not have what I need with me. I can drive the 2800 miles in 3.5 days and I generally enjoy the drive. The actual driving time is about 47 hours but the scenery is great. I do my exercises while driving and even swim on the trip (swim in a town called Gillette) and would be able to race with out a rest.

Stop whining about having to travel. :violin: To do any kind of a meet, even a half day meet with only a handful of swimmers, I have to drive a minimum of 3-4 hours. And if I get to 4 or 5 meets in a year, it's a good year. Every meet is a travel meet for me. I can drive to Fresno. :banana::woot: Yay! After-party on the reservation!! :rofl:

You might lose your hair, but come on. :D I didn't steal your country...don't look at me... Call me Dances with Groundhogs

Carpool to Indy? I carpool to Indy every summer. I'll swing down and pick you up on my way.

Last time I flew to Tornto I lived in Prince George10 hr drive to Vancouver. But I now live in Vancouver. To go to the airport I get up at 5 am preparation to fly getting to the airport get on the plane get to TO get baggage get a rental car then drive to my brothers place, have not seen him for a year. Talk til 1am 20 hr day. 20 hours seems a little high. If it takes you an hour to drive to the airport, allowing two hours to get through security, etc., five hours in the air and an hour to get your bags that still adds up to nine hours total. Heck even if it takes you an entire day you're saving 2.5 days compared to driving.

HH - any word on where the other bids were from? When are we going to get to go back to the Nassau County facility? There were no other bids, for either Short Course or Long Course Nationals. This has been a problem the last few years. If there is a facility in your area that would be capable of holding a national meet (1000-2500 swimmers), please encourage them to bid. Anna Lea

SCY Nationals in Clovis will be in two brand new 50 meter pools. There will also be an open water event held in conjunction with the pool championships. It will be the USMS 1 Mile Open Water National Championship, and will be held at Millerton Lake on the following Monday. SWEET!!!! It was my understanding that Federal Way and the Woodlands were not all that well attended this year. Plenty of nationally ranked people at our wee Colonies Zones meet the weekend after Nats. WR holders even. National rankings often reflect virtual, not head-to-head competition. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that a good percentage of the Top Ten LC rankings this year will have been swum by people who didn't attend Woodlands. I don't think federal way was too far off numbers-wise. Thanks for the shout-out, fort! We had 6 national records broken at our zone meet. LCM Top 10 - Yes, look at the Current Top Times. From my age group, I'd say 20% would be a very generous figure for the men.

I just looked at a number of age groups, male and female, and between approx 33%-40% of all top times this year were achieved at Nationals, even higher if you throw in top times from Y Nationals. Further, if you take the 2 minutes needed to look at all-time top times, it's easy to see that a high percentage are achieved at National competition. This isn't to argue there isn't great swimming at Zones or other smaller meets, just bolsters the assertion that Nationals tend to bring out not only the best swimmers, but also the best times. Please note my numbers are from a quick and cursory look, not the detailed investigation that knelson might do. Still, the number of top times from Nats is impressive.

I wonder which meets have the largest attendance: east, west or central like Austin or Indy? Here are the numbers from the last ten years: 1996 5/9–12 Cupertino, Calif. 2048 8/21–25 Ann Arbor, Mich. 1176 1997 5/15–18 Federal Way, Wash. 1438 8/14–17 Orlando, Fla. 881 1998 5/7–10 Indianapolis, Ind. 1738 8/20–23 Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 922 1999 5/13–16 Santa Clara, Calif. 2060 8/19–23 Minneapolis, Minn. 949 2000 4/27–30 Indianapolis, Ind. 1390 8/17–20 Baltimore, Md. 1380 2001 5/17–20 Santa Clara, Calif. 1850 8/16–19 Federal Way, Wash. 959 2002 5/14–17 Honolulu, Hawaii 1103 8/16–19 Cleveland, Ohio 1022 2003 5/15–18 Tempe, Ariz. 1922 8/13–17 Rutgers, N.J. 871 2004 4/22–25 Indianapolis, Ind. 1564 8/12–15 Savannah, Ga. 1084 2005 5/19–22 Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 1620 8/10–14 Mission Viejo, Calif. 1109 2006 5/4–7 Coral Springs, Fla. 1271Not held - World Championships 2007 5/17–20 Federal Way, Wash. 1456 8/10–13 The Woodlands, Tex. 911 (the ones in italics I added from looking at the meet rosters. Everything else is just cut and pasted from the rule book) If you look at just the short course numbers, the meets that have had close to or over 2,000 entries have all been in the West (Santa Clara, Cupertino, Tempe). Of course the biggest long course meet was in Baltimore. Other than that one attendance seems to be fairly constant at around 1,000 for the LC meet.