I know that I have seen others talk about "how good am I if I swim the 200 in this time", or "if my mile is 17min".
and then the responses are typically, look at results from previous meets, or last years top 10 time.
But does anyone try to take into account how many actually swim that event/distance? Is one a good swimmer merely because only 12 people swim the 400 IM.
I looked at the 2007 top 10 SCM for Men 30-34. for *** and IM I would have been top 10 in 3 of 6 events/distances.
50 br 33.37 outside of top 10
100br 1:14.08 (10)
200br 2:42.20 (7)
400 IM 5:19.71 (7)
but how many 30-34 competed in those events in 2007? I would guess that more people competed in 2006 at the World Championships in Cali.
In Sweden I have top 10 times in nearly everything but 50-100 free, but that is only because it's not too often that there are more than 10-12 swimmers in my age grupp. I know of 4-6 swimmers that will be 35-39 in 2010 and all of them are significanly faster than me, just not sure swimming at the Worlds is something they plan on doing.
I recently looked at a German time standard, since they had one for every year 11-18 and then an open I used the open table. The table was scaled to 1-20. 20 being the fastest. something simliar to the US AAAA standards but with more divisions. I was at best 6 of a possible 20 in Breaststroke. and not even 1 in Back and Fly. and between 1-2 for Free and IM. to me that seems more like a realistic measurement of my ability.
Former Member
I see where some of the disconnect is.
In reviewing the Great Britain records with the US masters swimming records, they aren't comparable. Generally speaking (and there are a few exceptions), the US records are significantly faster. I could totally see Great Britain records being broken in practice. My meet times this past LCM season would qualify me for several GB national records where I'm not very close to US nat records. So I think it depends on what country you are swimming in.
I agree with the OP's sentiment that the top 10 times are not a good guide to how you compare against other swimmers due to low levels of participation. There are definitely significant numbers of people swimming to keep fit who would be very fast indeed if they chose to compete. Breaking national records in practice is at the extreme end of the spectrum, but I certainly know one person who swam at my health club who has never competed in a masters meet in his entire life, and he would have been there or thereabouts for the number 1 ranking in GB in his age group if he had competed. I know this for a fact because he swam the time in a meet, just not a masters meet, so the time didn't go into the masters rankings. He had no interest in competing, he only did the non-masters meet to help out the club in an inter-club competition.
Another guy who I train with every week had only done one masters meet in the last decade or two when I joined the club. With my encouragement, he now holds 3 GB Masters Records.
NotVeryFast - I dispute your assertion. While a country's size means there are more people it in no way translates to success. Take China and India on one extreme with relatively weak programs versus Jamaica and Australia on the other hand with great programs. Britain's complete absence from discussion on sports these days is more indicative of poor programs and a lack of focus on athletics than some population argument.
Actually, second to China, Britain had the largest gain in Olympic medals this year (19 golds and 47 in total). They were particularly dominant in track cycling (7 out of 10 golds) despite Tour de France sprinting stud Mark Cavendish (4 stage wins) going home empty handed.
I've read all the responses... really, laughed on a few posts, and disappointed by others, either way, this was entertaining for me. The initial assumption was probably trying to compare EX-age groupers with a decent masters record. It's so easy to say, this record isn't that fast, etc. but the relative perspective of age really does impact the result. For the most part, legitimate performances are very hard to accomplish, especially when you add 20+ years to the equation.
Which brings me to the next part, training performances actually do slide when you're not being held accountable by competition.
Saying a record has or could be broken in work-out is further off the mark, more disputable than one record falling once, to a person who doesn't see the life-long compatibility of enduring performance. Perhaps there really are a few gifted people who still don't recognize the value of the masters community, fine, but a few years later, and they won't even come close.
I see where some of the disconnect is.
In reviewing the Great Britain records with the US masters swimming records, they aren't comparable. Generally speaking (and there are a few exceptions), the US records are significantly faster. I could totally see Great Britain records being broken in practice. My meet times this past LCM season would qualify me for several GB national records where I'm not very close to US nat records. So I think it depends on what country you are swimming in.
While it is true that the US records will typically be faster than the GB records, I think it is comparing like with like to look at training performances of GB swimmers relative to GB records. There may be other reasons for the US records being faster, but a major factor will be the bigger population. The bigger population will make the records faster, but it will also give you a correspondingly bigger pool of people from which to find people who can break the records in practice. So I think the two things ought to cancel out, and you should have a similar chance of finding a US swimmer who can break a US record in practice, compared with the chance of finding a GB swimmer who can break a GB record in practice.
Be careful, Geek-o-mundo. Mention of 'sports that matter' could draw LBJ out of the weeds to regale us with anecdotes re racewalking (dryland noodling) where the notion of 'rank' could only refer to the judging of form.
I know you are proud of all your medals in the UK. But, in taking a look at what you medaled in, there is not a lot to be overly proud of, mostly obscure sports and heavy on the cycling. UK used to be relevant in the sporting world, no longer.
As to USMS performance, I have no idea what you are talking about.
China failed to meet their own medal goal and if you exclude the medals from their obviously underage gymnastics team, I can't be convinced it was a very successful performance by them overall.
NotVeryFast - I dispute your assertion. While a country's size means there are more people it in no way translates to success. Take China and India on one extreme with relatively weak programs versus Jamaica and Australia on the other hand with great programs. Britain's complete absence from discussion on sports these days is more indicative of poor programs and a lack of focus on athletics than some population argument.
I explicitly said that population isn't the only factor. But whatever factors are leading to success at USMS Record level in the US, do those same factors not also improve standards at a lower level? Or do the USMS national record holders have exclusive access to a source of better performance?
An example of where elite performance does not translate into better performance for the whole population is elite cycling in GB, where the resources are focused on a tiny handful of cyclists, whose level of performance cannot be matched by those who don't have access to those resources. I doubt that this situation applies to USMS, though.
And regarding your observations on relative strength of programs, GB were 4th in the Olympic medal table, ahead of the "great" programs of Jamaica and Australia, and the US finished 2nd behind the "weak" program of China.
Be careful, Geek-o-mundo. Mention of 'sports that matter' could draw LBJ out of the weeds to regale us with anecdotes re racewalking (dryland noodling) where the notion of 'rank' could only refer to the judging of form.
Slap, slap, slap, slap!
You speak heresy - "dryland noodling", indeed!
Your penance: www.youtube.com/watch
-LBJ
