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.
I can't recall ... did we shift to the straight up no categories system because of this behavior or for other reasons? It is indeed utterly disgraceful, but does a super rare occurrence (I hope), justify the current system, making it unfair for small and medium sized local teams?
I think another reason was the perception that cutoffs between small/medium/large were a little arbitrary.
I can't recall ... did we shift to the straight up no categories system because of this behavior or for other reasons? It is indeed utterly disgraceful, but does a super rare occurrence (I hope), justify the current system, making it unfair for small and medium sized local teams?
I think another reason was the perception that cutoffs between small/medium/large were a little arbitrary.
