I am writing a story for Swimmer magazine on where USMS records are likely to be 50 years from now and would truly appreciate your help in predicting these!
There are a total of 1800+ individual pool records possible, so to narrow things down, I'm concentrating on two events in two age groups: the 100 yards free and the 400 yard IM in age groups 45-49 and 65-69.
The current records here are pretty amazing, and the curves showing the trajectories since USMS began 50 years ago suggest there is likely plenty of room to drop.
If you could send me your email address to jamesthornton1@comcast.net , I will send you my little prediction form plus graphs of the record trends. Thanks in advance.
Alternatively, you could just post your predictions here. In any event, I need to have my story in by the 15th, so please act with some alacrity! Again, thanks so much in advance.
PS if you could include any rationale behind your predictions (mathematical analysis, guess work, gut feeling, whatever) that would be fantastic!
Note: current records and record holders are in red below.
Name: _______________________
Your predictions for records by 2070:
Men 100 Free
Now:45-49 (N. Grainger: 46.21) 65-69 (R. Abrahams: 49.42)
By 2070 _________________ _________________
Women 100 Free
Now: 45-49 (E. Braun: 51.99) 65-69 (L. Val: 57.88)
By 2070: _______________ _________________
Men 400 IM
Now:45-49 (N. Grainger: 4:01.32) 65-69 (R. Colella: 4:30.64)
By 2070: ___________ _____________________
Women 400 IM
Now: 45-49 (K. Pipes-Nielsen: 4:32.87) 5-69 (L. Val: 5:21.70)
By 2070: ___________ __________________
Rationale for your choices:
Bugs me too. It seems so simple (from my understanding of website platforms) to just add a link at the top directing people to the forums. And since it seems so easy but USMS hasn't done it, I have to believe it's because they choose not to do it, which goes to show they really don't give a damn about these forums anymore.I would have to agree. What is so sad is that there doesn't seem to be any alternative online forum that USMS is investing in. Yeah, they do the odd post to Instagram, but even that has little regularity to it and that is not a platform for conversation. And, there's no real discussion or engagement on Facebook from USMS.
USMS had THE global lead with these forums as a place for adult swimmers to talk about swimming and they've squandered it. I'm sure they will see a membership drop due to the pandemic, but I'm sure the USMS leadership's decision to not invest in the key virtual community they already had will exacerbate this drop.
Bugs me too. It seems so simple (from my understanding of website platforms) to just add a link at the top directing people to the forums. And since it seems so easy but USMS hasn't done it, I have to believe it's because they choose not to do it, which goes to show they really don't give a damn about these forums anymore.I would have to agree. What is so sad is that there doesn't seem to be any alternative online forum that USMS is investing in. Yeah, they do the odd post to Instagram, but even that has little regularity to it and that is not a platform for conversation. And, there's no real discussion or engagement on Facebook from USMS.
USMS had THE global lead with these forums as a place for adult swimmers to talk about swimming and they've squandered it. I'm sure they will see a membership drop due to the pandemic, but I'm sure the USMS leadership's decision to not invest in the key virtual community they already had will exacerbate this drop.
