Swimming World's top 12 master swimmers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Certainly they do. They even have all-time Top 10 performers: www.fina.org/.../index.php I agree with Allen that the emphasis on WRs distorts things. In the case of some swimmers that have many such records in their age group, it means that they are essentially competing against their younger selves, even if they are far ahead of their nearest competitors. Also...it may not be a very PC thing to say, but primarily using WRs could somewhat inflate the accomplishments of older swimmers who have many WRs simply b/c there have not been many swims in that particular event. (Let me hasten to add that I have a huge admiration for such swimmers, in fact they are generally the athletes I admire most. If the purpose of the recognition is primarily to honor longevity, then so be it and I have no problem with it...but it shouldn't just happen by default.) I think some sort of age-adjusted rating system like the one we use in Virginia: www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi (there are other methods too) would be good too for more objectively evaluating someone like Dennis Baker who competes in fewer events but rates extremely well in those events. Thanks, Chris. Now, the biggest problem I see with trying to do the top 10s (or even just cross referencing people who end the year with a WR and adding in people who are top 10s in an event) is that the 2008 LCM list was posted on the FINA site on March 23. We really only have two issues each year that can allow us to give Masters the full attention of an issue and those are April and October. But, if we went with October, that would mean people wouldn't be honored for another 6 months on top of the somewhat delayed setup we have right now. I do like adding in #1s and top 10s (we have a similar method in the World/Regional Swimmers of the Year each year). I'm just trying to figure out how I can fit this into the process. Any ideas? Think Walt Reid would be able to process the top 10s any quicker? Also, I'm still wanting to get our panel up to at least 10, and we're already U.S. heavy on the panel as is. Our World/Regional voting panel is up to almost 20 now.

Certainly they do. They even have all-time Top 10 performers: www.fina.org/.../index.php I agree with Allen that the emphasis on WRs distorts things. In the case of some swimmers that have many such records in their age group, it means that they are essentially competing against their younger selves, even if they are far ahead of their nearest competitors. Also...it may not be a very PC thing to say, but primarily using WRs could somewhat inflate the accomplishments of older swimmers who have many WRs simply b/c there have not been many swims in that particular event. (Let me hasten to add that I have a huge admiration for such swimmers, in fact they are generally the athletes I admire most. If the purpose of the recognition is primarily to honor longevity, then so be it and I have no problem with it...but it shouldn't just happen by default.) I think some sort of age-adjusted rating system like the one we use in Virginia: www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi (there are other methods too) would be good too for more objectively evaluating someone like Dennis Baker who competes in fewer events but rates extremely well in those events. Thanks, Chris. Now, the biggest problem I see with trying to do the top 10s (or even just cross referencing people who end the year with a WR and adding in people who are top 10s in an event) is that the 2008 LCM list was posted on the FINA site on March 23. We really only have two issues each year that can allow us to give Masters the full attention of an issue and those are April and October. But, if we went with October, that would mean people wouldn't be honored for another 6 months on top of the somewhat delayed setup we have right now. I do like adding in #1s and top 10s (we have a similar method in the World/Regional Swimmers of the Year each year). I'm just trying to figure out how I can fit this into the process. Any ideas? Think Walt Reid would be able to process the top 10s any quicker? Also, I'm still wanting to get our panel up to at least 10, and we're already U.S. heavy on the panel as is. Our World/Regional voting panel is up to almost 20 now.