Well ever since I aged up from 12 to 13 (which was a while ago), I have always wondered why there is no 100 IM for kids who are 13 and over, at least for short course (Yards) season (you can't really do a 100 IM in a LCM pool >.>). While there are some meets where you can do it, it isn't like a state event or anything. It seems like USA swimming is the only team that doesn't really allow it in such a way. I have looked at info on other countries and their swim teams and they seem to do it, as a state (province for other countries....) and above event even.
When I turned 13, I felt a sharp jump from being able to swim 50's to be jumped up to 100's and 200's. While recently some meets have begun to add these events in the older age groups (slower though than the rate at which the younger age groups are getting the longer events that didn't used to be available to them), it's still slow. There still aren't any motivational time standards for the short events for 13 & Up swimmers, which makes it hard to set cuts for these events (other than the "use your 100 time as entry and qualification for the event"). Ultimately this is going to be the way it is until these events are added to the Olympics (they're even at world champs, and the world champs selections for the US don't take the 50's into account).
Still there's nothing that stops a meet host from having 50's or the 100 IM for any age group as sanctioned events, in the same sense that there's nothing that stops a Masters meet host from having sanctioned 25's (or even for an LMSC/Zone to keep records for 25's to boot). If you want wider acceptance of these events, urge your meet hosts to add these events, and then patronize them. No meet host is going to complain about events if they get teams to come to the meet and are short on the timeline to boot.
Patrick King
As previously stated, I think it just a historical issue with time to run swim meets. Few event offer all the swim event, so only have under-12 do 100 IM and over-12 do 200IM/400 IM is our best guess.
Just like few elite event have few 50m events, we can only guess.
FINA does keep world records for the 100IM SCM and all 50m events:
www.fina.org/.../index.php
So at least some events do hold 100 IM SCM for over 12-year olds !
You would think that is true and this would seem to confirm it:
YouTube- All Star Individual Medley
.
But, look what happens when they get older:
YouTube- Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker, Rogers, Chapman - 100 IM Encore
OMG!!! The comparison made me split my sides laughing!
Thanks for this post! :)
Good point and one that I've wondered about. Could this distance change be a contributing factor (granted a minor one at best) to a drop in participation in swimming during this age up period?
Thanks for posting, though there is no real answer to my question. It still is weird that other countries do the 100 IM but not us. :argue:
:chug::frustrated:
