FINA Disallows Michigan, Indiana, Iowa “World Records”

Keeping with history, after adding new events to the list of officially recognized World Records, FINA has disallowed the swims done by the University of Michigan, Indiana, and Iowa, according to SwimVortex.

These swims, which were hoped to be World Records simply on the basis of being the first to jump the gun, are far from the fastest that have ever been swum in those races.

FINA will now establish “standards” that need to be cleared before something can be recognized as the first World Record in these events, and these standards will likely be fast enough that they will come from national-team relays at international-level events, or in the least from very good relays in countries like China, where the country’s top national-team swimmers are concentrated in certain clubs.

Two days after FINA opened the doors to World Records, Indiana broke them in all 8 new events. Two days later, at the Water Carnival, Michigan and Iowa each broke one of those records again.

We’ll likely see the first swims to be considered as records in the upcoming legs of the World Cup in Russia, Dubai, or Doha, as many nations (including Great Britain) are sending the right pieces to make some solid national team relays for the mixed 4×50 free and medley.

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10 years ago

I am still going to refer to IOWA CITY EELS Asst. Coach Dustin Rhoads as “former World Record Holder” if he helps coach our age-group kids again in the future! Take that FINA!

Hoosier Fan
10 years ago

I think FINA needs to a makeover, they seem to make up rules where there are none when it suits them. This was a fun event for these kids they have been training hard for a couple months and it was a fun time for them. They all know these records would not be around long so what is the harm. They went through the proper planning and had drug testing, officials and official measuring of the pool so that everything that should make a record stand was accounted for in a normal record situation. There always has to be a first record holder for every event. My guess is they wanted to have some grand meet to roll out… Read more »

Kirk Nelson
10 years ago

And let me add that establishing some kind of standard that must be cleared before world records “count” is ridiculous. I could see a rule saying the first world records will be the fastest times after the new events have been on the books for a year or something like that, but having some kind of time standard for a world record is just silly. But FINA does lots of things that are pretty silly…

Steve Nolan
10 years ago

Ah, one of those fun situations where I think everybody’s being kinda dumb. While I understand why those schools wanted to go after those records, it’s still fairly disingenuous. And FINA’s just acting like…I dunno, how big governing bodies act, applying rules all retroactively and whatnot.

Kirk Nelson
Reply to  Steve Nolan
10 years ago

I’m failing to understand what’s disingenuous about it at all.

Steve Nolan
Reply to  Kirk Nelson
10 years ago

To someone that doesn’t know those events are brand-new, hearing Indiana/Michigan set world records would be pretty impressive, no? But to anyone that knows just a smidgen of what’s going on, the records are fairly meaningless. (And not the fastest swims ever in those events, even, just ones that almighty FINA would recognize.)

mcgillrocks
Reply to  Steve Nolan
10 years ago

i think its sort of funny and does no harm. those colleges should have a duel meet on Jan 1 so they get all of the world top 10 times for at least a couple hours

Steve Nolan
Reply to  mcgillrocks
10 years ago

Yeah, I probably agree with that. Let me amend my initial post – FINA = super dumb. Those schools = eh, kinda cute but still, blah.

beachmouse
10 years ago

IIRC, many of them couldn’t have been declared world records anyway because of the rule that all four swimmers had to compete under the same passport. Keep in mind that until the supersuit era, there were a number of US Open SCM relay records that were faster than the official FINA records, but were not recognized because the swims had happened at the 2004 NCAA meet and involved foursomes of multple nationalities.

Henry
10 years ago

If you want to see fast short course meters swimming, go to YouTube and search “European Short Course champs 2008 Rjeika”. You’ll see those relays should be the WRs.

Eddie Rowe
10 years ago

Start a new conference and get immediate conference records, no? It’s the same thing just scaled up larger.

Nostradamus
10 years ago

@thanksfina hey now, they are nice people!!!!!!! seriously though, thank god that record isn’t in the books. iowa wasn’t even close to first place in the heat…..

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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