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.
we allow UNAT relays to swim (unofficially) at our local meets and they function in exactly this "pickup" fashion. The relays don't count for anything. I wonder if this could be done at nationals with no change of rules at all?
It seems like the only problem would be adding time to an already long meet, but I can't think of an objection to filling any empty lanes. Maybe the policy could be to not combine age groups in a single heat and then have a first come, first serve sign-up sheet for pickup relays to fill open lanes.
we allow UNAT relays to swim (unofficially) at our local meets and they function in exactly this "pickup" fashion. The relays don't count for anything. I wonder if this could be done at nationals with no change of rules at all?
It seems like the only problem would be adding time to an already long meet, but I can't think of an objection to filling any empty lanes. Maybe the policy could be to not combine age groups in a single heat and then have a first come, first serve sign-up sheet for pickup relays to fill open lanes.
