Last year USA Swimming passed a proposal to do away with the Speedo Junior Championship meets which were held at 3 separate sites and replace them with between 8 and 16 Sectional Meets that would be held generally closer to home. The Eastern Zone that we are a part of decided to split into two Regions. Our Region consists of Adirondack Mountain, Mid-Atlantic, Maryland, Potomac Valley and Virginia LSCs. Then our region decided to have one meet for the 5 LSCs. RMSC bid on this meet and won the bid, so it will be at GMU on 3/15/2001 through 3/18/2001. It is a Short Course Yards meet, 3 ½ days long, first day being Women's 1650 & Men's 1000. The other 3 days being Trials & Finals. This format is very much like PVS Senior Championships.
At the Convention our Region met to decide on the entry time requirements for this meet. It was decided there that the meet would be one course, with sessions running about 3 hours exclusive of relays or distance events (1000 & 1650 yard Freestyle). Time standards were then selected that should produce this size meet. They are posted on the PVS web page (and can be found at http://www.pvswim.org/0001meet/26sectcut.htm).
Going into this meeting we were expecting a meet about twice this size, with commensurately slower cuts. As a result of the Regions action we are taking another look at the PVS Spring schedule and you should expect some changes.
Summer Sectionals will be a Long Course format, again each session to last about 3 hours exclusive of relays & distance. It will be a full 4 day meet, with the same events as Spring Sectionals, except in Long Course Meters (i.e. the 1650 Free becomes the 1500 Free, etc). UMBC bid for this meet and it will be held there on 7/26/2001 through 7/29/2001. Time Standards for this meet should be available by the end of this year, but I would expect them to be close to the Spring LCM Standards, but probably a little bit slower.
National ChampionshipsThe two relay teams per event was a de facto rule before, just not codified. The Relay Only swimmers addresses a problem of teams abusing how many relay swimmers they could bring. The last two National Championships before Olympic Trials had in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 swimmers on the deck and taking up warm-up space that never swam in anything. This is meant to keep swimmers at the meet to only those that will actually be swimming.
All future Short Course National Championships and US Open meets that are done in Short Course format will be Meters (not Yards). In addition, the seeding order for National Long Course Meter or Short Course Meter Meets will be Meter/Meter/Yard times.
2004 National Championships & Olympic Trials proposals
If these dates hold PVS may have to do major revamping of our schedules in 2004, stay tuned.
Coach Incentive ProgramThis is meant to reward coaches who have significantly contributed to an athletes success, but is not the athletes current coach.
Distance AwardThe idea here is to incent distance swimming in the US. This is sure to get attention.
Eastern Summer Zones <The starting section rewrite does not affect PVS, nor almost all the other LSCs as they were all using the no recall option that previously existed. The recall rope became required a couple of years ago, and is now again optional.
The records rewrite brings it in line with International records requirements. It was possible before to set a International record, and yet it would not be recognized as a National record. The main difference that affects us is that a pool does not need to be measured (surveyed) until after a record has been set.
The Disability Championships will be Handled like other National Meets so far as scheduling, site, Officials, etc.
And, expect to see more locally on Open Water Meets. Our own Kerry Ellett is chairman of this committee.
Rules Changes that failedThe full body suit proposal was meant to limit the equipment cost that families might have to bear to keep their Age Groupers up to everyone else. It did so by attempting to limit the full body suit to essentially Senior level swimmers. This proposal failed. I would hope that Potomac Valley parents seriously consider the claimed benefits of these suits against their cost. At least at the moment, the efficacy of these suits is in considerable doubt. At Olympic Trials (and I understand at the Olympics as well), these suits were provided free of charge, and as the meet went on, you saw fewer and fewer of them being used.
The Top 16 program was not changes by this proposal, except that USA Swimming would not longer mail certificates to those who qualified. This proposal also failed.