With the continued growth in USMS membership, I would submit that it's time to eliminate the regional teams at Nationals. Case in point: NCMS sent a "team" of 123 swimmers to Atlanta, enough to enter A, B, C, and D relays in many events (e.g. the mens 35+ 200 free relay in which our club team placed 13th behind eight regional teams). It's been argued that the formation of regional teams allows more swimmers to participate in relays, yet local clubs from North Carolina sent as many as thirty or more athletes and could have entered relays on their own as our club (with eight swimmers) did. Swim with the guys you actually train with.
just to deviate slightly from the topic on hand, I think it would be cool to compete for your state. so nationals would be 50 teams + PR. I would also think its important that people swimming for their state are actually residents of that state.
I say that because I think Worlds would be more interesting if it was a meet for nation against nation not team against team. There must be 100's if not a 1000 teams being respresented at worlds. Of the nearly 7000 coming to sweden, only 7 are from my team, but at last check there was over 600 from sweden.
Let the world records for relays be set by the 4 best swimmers from a country and not just the teams that can recruit. and that swimmers are not just members of the federation, but citizens of that country as well.
I'm lucky, I'm a dual citizen so I could pick and choose between sweden and the US (or Texas nationally)
just to deviate slightly from the topic on hand, I think it would be cool to compete for your state. so nationals would be 50 teams + PR. I would also think its important that people swimming for their state are actually residents of that state.
I say that because I think Worlds would be more interesting if it was a meet for nation against nation not team against team. There must be 100's if not a 1000 teams being respresented at worlds. Of the nearly 7000 coming to sweden, only 7 are from my team, but at last check there was over 600 from sweden.
Let the world records for relays be set by the 4 best swimmers from a country and not just the teams that can recruit. and that swimmers are not just members of the federation, but citizens of that country as well.
I'm lucky, I'm a dual citizen so I could pick and choose between sweden and the US (or Texas nationally)
