Open the Masters Records?

I don't agree that they should be opened to USA-S. If these guys come and swim in a Masters meet fine, but their times in the Rome World Championships(!) shouldn't count in USMS. IMHO. I can't imagine that they aspire to break USMS records anyway.

I remember Ion had a interesting and humorous position about different records.

I would tend to think that Masters might become intimidating to some, knowing that the likes of Jason Lezak were in "our" ranks. :2cents: You have MLB and you have adult baseball leagues. I doubt that the adult baseball leagues would like to have to compete with MLB's records, no matter how tainted with steroids they might be! :) Mike- I agree. And I do believe that world records for swimming are listed in the Guiness Book of World Records. IMHO, that's where they belong.

I enjoy reading about record breaking times from the human potential perspective. How fast can a 45 year old woman swim is more interesting to me than what type of meet she was competing in.

As someone else posted, it confuses the whole idea of masters swimming, which is for regular people who love to swim and want to continue competing as adults, as opposed to professional swimmers who are in a league unto themselves. Here's what the USMS website has to say: United States Masters Swimming (USMS) is a national organization that provides organized workouts, competitions, clinics and workshops for adults aged 18 and over. Programs are open to all adult swimmers (fitness, triathlete, competitive, non-competitive) who are dedicated to improving their fitness through swimming. From http://www.usms.org/about.php I don't really see anything in that wording about 'regular people.' Basically USMS is for anyone 18 or over who wants to swim, whether for fitness, competition, water safety, whatever. If you choose to compete, I think you need to be willing to compete against all comers, from those who are getting in the water after a twenty year layoff to current Olympians.

There's a reason they are called USMS records. They were set by USMS registered swimmers. As long as someone is registered, they count!

I think Great Bay Masters has a calculation that factors age into times: www.egswim.com/.../RatingTime.html I like keeping my comparisons local (to NEM) http://www.egswim.com/ne/. But at Worlds, it was exciting to swim in same heat as a former Olympic swimmer (can't remember who it was but she swam faster by about 2 minutes than her seed time). Most people on this bulletin board are as to me as Olympic swimmers are to you. I have my own goals, humble but satisfying. However, if I were an elite masters swimmer and suddenly found myself in a field of Olympic swimmers, even if they were swimming as USMS members, I'd feel a little cheated. Though at Harvard we had an Olympic triathlon dude swim the 50 free and it was very exciting to watch; he looked like a hovercraft. So I like the idea of being able to watch the Olympians close up (how cool could that be!), but feel for the elite masters who should not (IMHO) be comparing themselves to this group, and whose amazing times should not be bumped down as a result. As someone else posted, it confuses the whole idea of masters swimming, which is for regular people who love to swim and want to continue competing as adults, as opposed to professional swimmers who are in a league unto themselves. I would hate to see meets become intimidating for the slower swimmers, or for the older swimmers. It's very inspiring to see John Merrill (sp), age 94, I think, knock 2 minutes off his distance time from last year. Pretty darn cool. Right now masters meets are very open; if they opened in the fullest sense to the very fastest swimmers, this openness and awe of how swimming can aid longevity and connection to cool parts of life might get lost (racing at age 94 sure beats drooling over pudding in a nursing home). Though I do see that if someone joins masters and wants to race in masters meets, so they should. My memory from Worlds at Stanford is that someone beat Torres in one event. I may be wrong. The usual 3 a.m. incoherent thread....

Yeah, but what about FINA world records? The original post linking the Swimming World editorial only discussed FINA records, not USMS. Most people in this thread seem to agree that USMS records should be set by USMS registered swimmers.

I don't care whether a world class swimmer is registered as a Masters or not, but am curious about the top times ever posted in each age group irregardless of what type of meet the swimmer competed in. I even get a kick out of hearing about great workout performances. I don't understand this. Who is running swim meets other than USMS for people over (for the most part) early 30s? I guess we could all compete in USA Swimming meets if USMS didn't exist. USMS is an organization. Either join or go away but your records don't count if you don't join and it's not real hard to join.

Don't we already have USMS-registered swimmers swimming at age-group type meets, and getting their times recognized by USMS? I really don't see how this is different. Anyone who is a USMS-registered swimmer, and who goes about the process to get the swim recognized (pool measured, officiating, etc), why shouldn't the swim count towards USMS records?