The following has appeared on a swim forum in the UK
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I’ve been looking at recent masters results. It’s clear that swimmers are producing much slower times without bodysuits. Furthermore, many swimmers are disillusioned and are on the verge of giving up completely. It would be a travesty if these swimmers (they are mostly the over 45s) were lost to the sport altogether.
The majority of masters swimmers prefer to compete in bodysuits. Of that there is no doubt, as witnessed at masters meets up and down the country. It is a disgrace that masters swimmers have been included in the ‘new rules’ concerning elite swimming. I find it quite sad that many swimmers are talking about cutting up their suits, taking out zips and even asking whether they are allowed ‘modesty panels’ in their suits any more.
As always, we are getting no advice, guidance or even leadership from the toothless Masters Committee, whose gingivitic and malocclusive tendencies are attracting Big Nev’s interest, but that’s to be expected.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. Masters swimmers in Italy are not accepting this farce. They are still holding meets where swimmers can choose to wear bodysuits.
There was a recent questionnaire sent out to 4,000 masters swimmers in France. 2,700 swimmers replied, stating they wished to keep their bodysuits for competition.
Masters swimmers in Germany are on the verge of revolution! They accept that masters swimmers are not going to be a threat to any Olympian’s records. Many have now entered masters meets in Italy where they can wear their suits if they want. Also, some meet organisers in Germany are holding similar meets.
Instead of following any directive from our anaemic and tedious Masters Committee, I’d like to see masters swimmers in the UK make a stand against the stupidity surrounding the banning of bodysuits. It will cost me time and money but I’m prepared to organise this.
We need meet organisers in the UK to hold ‘optional suit’ masters meets. Swimmers can choose whether to wear a suit or not. If they are going for a record then the suitless option is a must - but only for a while. I believe that if we boycott masters meets where suits are now allowed, meet organisers, the Masters Committee and the ASA would have to take notice. At the moment they don’t give a toss. At the forefront of the ASA’s mind would be the loss of revenue. Believe me, they see masters swimming as a joke anyway, they would happily let masters swim in bodysuits if it meant they could keep the revenue pouring in.
Getting meet organisers to run ‘bodysuit’ meets would be easy. They would be oversubscribed, every time. Not only from our swimmers but from overseas entries too. I can see one-day meets turning into weekend ones. The organisers could make a lot of money from these well-attended meets. Pulling the plug on masters meets because of low entries would be a thing of the past.
These meets would be the thin end of the wedge in bringing about a change of rules. It‘s the boycotting of ‘non-suit’ meets that would bring a change of rule overnight.
The decathlon would be meaningless because ‘suited’ swims wouldn’t count towards it - but in reality, it is a meaningless competition anyway for all but ten swimmers in the UK who have a chance of winning it.
Don’t underestimate what can be done. Masters swimmers are a powerful group in swimming. The Government is putting very large amounts of money into the greasy hand of the ASA to promote health and fitness for adults. The ASA wouldn’t like the kind of publicity we can give them.
If you feel you can support this initiative I’ll make a start. Masters swimmers in Italy, France and Germany are ready to come on board. Many masters swimmers in America are also willing to make a stand against their governing body. Naturally, support from suit manufacturers is there already. I’ve spoken to four of the biggest.
Former Member
My car? 1996 Toyota Tacoma compact pickup. It's rusty, the bumper sits at a funny angle, and it's got almost 200,000 miles on it. However it runs when I turn the key and the insurance and taxes are cheap.
My tech suit? Yingfa-- $35 on eBay, and it came in an envelope festooned with pretty stamps from China. Is it faster than my practice suit? Oh hell yes. It was immediately obvious the first time I hit the water in it. Is it as fast as a $400 suit? Without a lottery win, I'll never know. But you know what? I don't care. I'm having fun, they're having fun, it's all good.
(This carries over into other sports I compete in, too. Take tennis-- there's some seriously wealthy *&%#s playing tennis, with their expensive club memberships, husbands who own airplanes, top-of-the line racquets, private lessons from a pro, expensive Adidas outfits, etc. I go out there on the tournament court in my practice shorts and tank top with my last-year's-style racquet and shoes with a hole in the toe and work my tail off to beat them, and it feels GREAT! Sure they drive home to their half-million-dollar McMansion in a 2010 BMW and I drive to a little apartment in a crappy worn-out industrial town in my trusty old pickup, but my point is that a seasoned scrounger and bargain-shopper can make do with 2nd tier equipment.)
Point is, it's not about the money. People who have less will find a way to level the playing field-- work harder, second-hand gear, bargain shopping, what have you. It's all good if it's all fun.
Yeah, I'd probably get bummed. I'd still get over it if I was beating my personal goals as my goals are always geared around racing myself / my own times.
If there are consistent meets that are not getting into the list, I'd not swim them. Else, you could become your LMSC's records person or TT person (or whoever it is that ensures results are included) and ensure that all meets get in. :)
This has happened at completely different meets. Had I noticed a pattern, believe me, I'd avoid the meets. Now another issue is that our state only holds say one SCM meet a year. And, at times there is a problem with that meet. Then you travel out of state to attend another meet only to have those times not count as well. Think I'm better off moving out of Dixie Zone. Also, the meets not counting do not always fall on the shoulders of the TT person! For example, if I travel to Alabama and the meet director fails to measure the pool, my TT person will not be able to fix that one. But I agree with you in that becoming the TT person could help!
I missed something in this discussion. What are "retroactive DQs"?
My friends and I coined this term.
For example, you swim in what you think is a sanctioned USMS meet.
Your times may or may not be entered into the "Event Rankings." If the times are entered into Event Rankings, say, for example, you are listed as #2 in your age group in a particular event. Prelim Top 10 comes out and all of a sudden your swim and all the swims from the meet are not listed. You are not notified of this fact (other than you see the missing swims) nor are you told why the swims disappeared. It's as if you never did the swim and the meet never existed. In essence, you are disqualified months after the meet taking place and you are disqualified from Top10 without being told how or why.
Now, if you want to take the initiative, you can pester people about the missing meet and you may be given a reason as to why the meet ended up not counting.
I always thought it would be very useful to see data as it pertains to the percentage of meets that end up not counting for Top 10.
I agree. My sole point here is that cost will be a factor in many people's decisions.
Kirk, basic Econ 101 - regardless of income (and certainly regardless of what they drive - I mean, that's beyond laughable), many people, wealthy or otherwise, consider cost a factor.
I could care less what anyone else is wearing since I am mostly competing against myself. Whether I get beat by 10 seconds or 12 seconds in the 100 free because of a tech suit is no matter.
Perhaps this statement is why the prior "pathetic" comment was somewhat confusing. Surely we're not "pathetic" for wearing racing gear to compete?
Perhaps those people are simply not cut out for sport.
Just to clarify, b/c I don't want to put words in your mouth: people who are put off by the idea of having to by a tech suit (or intimidated by fast swimming in general) aren't welcome in USMS?
I think competitive swimming is much more intimidating to the average person than cycling. My wife joined a club called "tri-moms" that was a females-only triathlon club for newbies (despite the name, you weren't required to be a mother to join, though the idea was originally to try to lure women back into serious training who had been out of it for awhile).
Anyway, they had a series of coaches, lectures, tutorials and training sessions for all three sports, and for the transitions and other logistics of doing triathlons. And of course group training. It was (and is) a well-done program. (I know of some people who have graduated to doing full IM triathlons from those beginnings.)
My wife reports that BY FAR the most intimidating aspect of the whole thing for newbies was the swim. It wasn't even close. This is despite the fact that they targeted sprint triathlons and that the swim leg was something like 300 yards for most of those races.
I don't think a tech suit discourages anyone from swimming. Most newbies don't even have meets on their radar screen when they join.
I train alongside a newbie tri group in the Summer and none have ever expressed reservation about swimming due to the suits. Most are just trying to not drown. And, if a suit is some hindrance, it sure begs the question why they will all go out and buy $2500 worth of biking and running gear.
Riding in a Cat 1 or 2 ride is not for the faint of heart, or stomach. Of course, none of them can swim, for the most part.
No, but it is pathetic to quit swimming because you can't wear a banned suit. Or to try and start a new organization outside of Masters to wear them is pathetic.
Awfully judgmental. If someone wants to pursue another sport where gear is allowed or have a different venue for swimming in tech suits (like the Texas meet or some other specialty meet or OW), I don't see a problem. We're all free agents as adults.
It's likely more "pathetic" to watch a sport based on skin coverage or tell people they're "pathetic" or "ridiculous" based on their choice of suit.
Look, my original statement was that it is not at all obvious to me that (a) tech suits are responsible even in a small way for the increase in USMS membership, and (b) banning them will result in a decrease in the sport. I have what seem to me to be plausible justifications, but opinions can differ because no one knows the truth at this point.
I know for a fact (because they complained to me) that there were at least some people -- newbies and veterans alike -- who were turned off from competitions because of the suits. I know that there were some who loved the suits and enjoyed competitions more because of them. And there are those like BN who claim they will quit USMS after the suits are gone.
I don't know how the numbers of the two groups compare; I don't think anyone knows, despite the OP's claim of massive uprisings in Europe.
But what is blindingly obvious is that the ban has increased the moaning and groaning by quite a bit, as is evidenced by the existence of this thread and quite a few others. My main fear at this point is that it will never, ever stop. Where is Dara Torres when you need her?
My friends and I coined this term.
For example, you swim in what you think is a sanctioned USMS meet.
Your times may or may not be entered into the "Event Rankings." If the times are entered into Event Rankings, say, for example, you are listed as #2 in your age group in a particular event. Prelim Top 10 comes out and all of a sudden your swim and all the swims from the meet are not listed. You are not notified of this fact (other than you see the missing swims) nor are you told why the swims disappeared. It's as if you never did the swim and the meet never existed. In essence, you are disqualified months after the meet taking place and you are disqualified from Top10 without being told how or why.
Now, if you want to take the initiative, you can pester people about the missing meet and you may be given a reason as to why the meet ended up not counting.
I always thought it would be very useful to see data as it pertains to the percentage of meets that end up not counting for Top 10.
Based on what I hear, I think the number is small and you've been unlucky.
Responding to both your and Fort's disparagement of the Dixie Zone...I have swum in (by my count) 4 meets in NC in the last few years, all of which were submitted to both the Meet Results database and to TT. No problems there. I also had no problems when I lived in Florida, though that was quite some time ago. In fact I can still find some of my old times from that era.
Sanctioning is done at the LMSC level, so I can only tell you what happens in Virginia. But when a meet is sanctioned the meet director agrees to take care of pool measurements and to submit the results on the TT recorder in a timely manner in electronic form. Failure to do these things can result in not being granted a sanction in the future. Measurements are not an issue so much here b/c all our main meets are in pools with walls (not bulkheads) so they don't need to be remeasured for each meet.
I asked Mary Beth Windrath about meets that are submitted after the deadline. Here was her response:
"Normally adding swims, especially an entire meet, is not done. If a TT recorder realizes they accidentally omitted a meet, I usually take it, but that is only because we try to support our TT recorders. In the case that the meet director did not send the meet results to the TT person, then we do not accept it. Or if the top ten person submits late, we do not accept it, regardless of how many meets were involved. Just to clarify, as long as the top ten person has made an attempt to submit by the deadline, even if there is some issue with it such as a bad format, then I accept it. That mostly happens with new recorders who are figuring things out. In the case where we have an accidentally missed meet and we do accept it, I usually ask the TT person to just give me the swims that make top ten, rather than the entire meet. When a swimmer emails one of us and says, my results didn't show up, I find out why. Usually it is one of the two cases I mentioned and we go from there."
Mary Beth is not obligated to accept new swims after the deadline but she will sometimes go out of her way to do so. When I first started out as a TT recorder, I didn't realize until after the deadline that we were responsible for submitting times from our swimmers in foreign meets. I quickly pored over the meet, compared it to the preliminary TT, and pulled those times that would make the list and submitted them. Since I was new and had done most of her work for her, she took pity on me and accepted them. She often does the same for others, but her job requires a LOT of time and we shouldn't abuse her kindness. Hence the need for strict deadlines.
