Courtesy: D. R. Hildebrand
Over the last few months, the international swimming community has been captivated by a flurry of exceptional achievements. Six swimmers—Li Bingjie, Tomoru Honda, Kliment Kolesnikov, Katie Ledecky, Maggie MacNeil, and Ruta Meilutyte—set individual world records. Australia, France, Italy, and the United States combined for eleven more, in relays. Chad Le Clos saw a resurgence; Summer McIntosh solidified her stardom; Jordan Crooks discovered his stardom; and at the age of 42, Nicholas Santos became the oldest world champion ever.
All of this, and more, happened in short course. Across numerous national championship meets, the World Cup, and the World Championships, a universal swimming conversation took place. It was part of a dialogue that has developed over decades, that ebbs and flows with the seasons, that brings nuance to a sport that only the most observant understand. One country, however, year after year, discounts this discussion. The United States participates, but reluctantly, ineloquently, never in a way that best serves the athletes who represent it.
The myopic among us, including some at USA Swimming, view long course as the sole standard of our sport. We see this most acutely in the U.S. federation’s short course selection process, which utilizes a long course rubric. By fixating on long course to such an extent that it silences short course, USA Swimming is not just ignoring the clear differences between the two formats; it is demoting athletes whose strengths do not conform to their standards, and, inadvertently, weakening the federation.
Swimming is not the sport it was 25 years ago. A little thing called money has entered the chat. The definition of amateurism is not what it once was. Swimmers can now earn tens of thousands of dollars at various high-level short course meets. If making a living as a swimmer keeps them swimming longer, and if swimming longer affords them the opportunity to improve more, and if more improvement contributes to heightened competition, why wouldn’t we choose to foster it? How does sending our swimmers to a meet we haven’t hosted ourselves help accomplish this?
USA Swimming has the opportunity to join the conversation by doing one easy, obvious thing: hosting at least one major short course meet per year. It could be a part of the Pro Swim Series. It could be Spring Nationals. It could be its own new meet. Whatever it is, no swimmer hailing from the most decorated swimming nation in the world should have to travel abroad to find it.
Ideally, this meet would be held the first weekend in April. At this time, NCAA swimmers and elite age groupers are completing their yards training. They can extend their seasons and tapers from yards—which is more akin to short course than short course is to long—to attend the meet following their yards competitions, and register times that could qualify them for an international short course meet. That is, assuming USA Swimming decides to reimage, in part of in full, its short course selection process.
At the 2022 Golden Goggles, USA Swimming honored Carol Zaleski with its Impact Award. Ms. Zaleski served as the organization’s president for eight years and in various other capacities within the sport for 45. As she received the award, she said something that brought the audience to its feet in applause. The late Richard Quick, she said, who coached six U.S. Olympic teams, used to say, “If you’re doing what’s in the best interest of the athletes, you’re doing the right thing.”
What’s in the best interest of the athletes is simple: to increase, not decrease, their opportunities. These include opportunities to compete, to gain experience and confidence, to gain recognition, to gain sponsors, to gain world rankings and records, accolades and earnings.
USA Swimming can join the short course conversation without abandoning its long course goals. The former would only benefit the latter. The more elite swimmers who have not yet flourished in long course but who remain in the sport, inspired by their short course success and the support they get from their federation, the more the sport is elevated as a whole. This is, quite literally, USA Swimming’s vision statement: “To inspire and enable our members to achieve excellence in the sport of swimming and in life.”
Excellence in the sport of swimming: long course, short course, open water. It’s all swimming. It’s all a conversation, a competition in which the best American swimmers should be inspired and supported to participate.
ABOUT D. R. HILDEBRAND
David Hildebrand manages a private swim club in Philadelphia. He competed for the College of William & Mary and now races Master’s with Club Tribe.
I saw the NCAA ran two Division 1 championships in SCM won’t he early 2000s, at these meets world records were set.
Why not incorporate a college championship SCM meet post season, and have USA swimming have a SCM championships as well.
America would have more world records.
I can’t believe I read all the comments. Still better than all the Swamy award nonsense.
The pool size discussion has an obvious answer. All pools should be LCM and all races should be swam diagonally corner to corner open water style. Simple. Also probably nude.
While coaching summer league many years ago I was fortunate to have input in the new pool’s design and construction. We went with 25 meters with because it would give the opportunity to switch leagues in the future if we so desired, and our current league was already a hodgepodge of 25y, 25m and 50m pools.
If we can make the switch from 20 yard pools, we can do it for 25 yards as well imo. It would require a lot of buy-in but the payoff would be great
Canada is just as bad. They don’t even let age group swimmers have their championship meet in SCM anymore, they want LC season to run January-August. It kills development, fun and speed at the age group level. Why do age groupers need LC racing, how many do they think will make the Olympics. Most of senior swimming is SC (pro meets, college, at least 1/2 of world championships). If the goal is to retain swimmers and have them swimming post-secondary the focus needs to be SC. The ones that need more than normal LC exposure will find and have their opportunities.
Great comment here. Especially the last one regarding spring/summer LC. Racing SC prelims and LC finals for a 10-12 year old (and most 14-17 year olds) in Feb or March makes zero sense.
Also for age group swimming, as in all the way up except perhaps SR Nat standards, allow for qualifying between SC and LC standards. To force age groupers into ‘finding’ a LC meet in winter for a spring/summer champs meet, again no sense.
The only thing SCY and SCM shows is who has good turns. LCM incorporates both turns and swim. Rather than looking into adding SCM to the mix let’s make college LCM and be done with this foolish talk.
Quickest way to kill the sport lmao. 1 50m pool for every 10 25 yard pools in my region. Two Tokyo Olympians both known for good turns and skills grew up around my area, I guarantee the vast majority of high caliber athletes would do different sports if swimming as a whole had 60% fewer athletes involved.
Worst take I’ve ever seen
I think we’re getting to the point where much more interest is being paid to high-level 25m meets. However, we run up against some significant barriers. In the USA, we still have the huge influence of college swimming, and its preferred format in 25y pools. A vast majority of American pools are also 25y long, so most USA-S swimmers train and compete in 25y pools. These are not easy to replace. College swimming will most likely stick to the 25y format: any change to the 25m format on a permanent basis would give plenty of athletic directors the excuse to cut programs because of “competitive disadvantages” in having “only” a 25y pool (at least in D1): that already happened at… Read more »
I am also from the DC area. All of the outdoor summer league pools are SCM but the indoor pools are SCY. Does anyone know the history behind this difference? Are outdoor summer league pools in other parts of the country SCM? I am curious.
In Washington state, I only kno0w of 1,excluding KCAC, the biggest pool with a functioning bulkhead. All high schools are SCY.
In the 1970’s, there was a push to move the US to the metric system, and so I would suspect pools built around that time might have been built to meters as that was how the future was viewed. Not sure if this was actually what was going on though.
Today the few pools that I’ve seen built to meters are really built as 25 yards by 25 meters.
Same here for the most part in CO, a handful of exceptions.
I think the incentive already exists. It’s the money awarded for making finals or breaking records at various meets. We don’t need to worry about the NCAA or NAG records. We just need to create at least one annual opportunity for the Gretchen Walshes, the Beata Nelsons, the Coleman Stewarts, the Ryan Hoffers–for anyone who has clearly mastered short course swimming. We need to let them compete, and not require them to leave the country to do so.
I think you vastly overstate D1 access to meters pools.
Unfortunately I don’t see the US ever fully embracing SCM because of pool lock in. Short course in the US means yards (SCY) and probably always will because 95% or more of pools in the US are SCY. Replacing pools is too expensive for even the highest level short course competition in the US (NCAA ) to ever seriously consider it. Just another consequence of not being on the metric system unfortunately.
Yes but also, so many pools in the us can be retrofitted. All the 50 m pools with bulk heads can convert. Pools with a bulkheads and a few lanes on the other side. The main problem for many pools would holes, but flag and bulkhead holes can be drilled. The other problem is lane lines which can simply be extended. So many pools can be retrofitted, not all but I could say that at least 10 in Michigan for not that much money. And if Michigan is representative for the rest, most states would have enough at least for competitive settings.
1000%
I wish we had the capacity to do…anything…productive collectively, but I especially don’t think “converting pools to 25m” will ever be high on the list.
(We’d need a significantly more wealthy US equivalent of Konstantin Grigorishin to just privately fund it all, basically.)