I think the whole "FINA doesn't care about SCY" argument is flimsy, though. No other rules are different, that I know about. (I sure would love to get rid of the 15m rule, for example.)
Rules that are different in USMS vs. FINA (most dealing with SCY only):
For SCY, your age for a meet is your age as of the last day of the meet. For SCM and LCM, we use the FINA rule that your age is your age as of December 31 that year.
For SCY, we have completely different age groups for relays (e.g. 25+, 35+, etc. as determined by the youngest swimmer on the relay vs. the FINA way of using the sum of ages and having 240-279, 280-319... age groups).
In USMS we support an 18-24 age group and associated relay age groups. The youngest Masters age group according to FINA is 25-29.
I think the whole "FINA doesn't care about SCY" argument is flimsy, though. No other rules are different, that I know about. (I sure would love to get rid of the 15m rule, for example.)
Rules that are different in USMS vs. FINA (most dealing with SCY only):
For SCY, your age for a meet is your age as of the last day of the meet. For SCM and LCM, we use the FINA rule that your age is your age as of December 31 that year.
For SCY, we have completely different age groups for relays (e.g. 25+, 35+, etc. as determined by the youngest swimmer on the relay vs. the FINA way of using the sum of ages and having 240-279, 280-319... age groups).
In USMS we support an 18-24 age group and associated relay age groups. The youngest Masters age group according to FINA is 25-29.
