Make Good Choices

The IOC should really do something about controlling who swims at the Olympic Games. FINA should look at the World Championships and major regional meets as well. It is outrageous that the third fastest swimmer in the United States sits at home while some swimmer who'd not qualify for a U.S. State Championship happily adds “Olympic athlete” to his or her resume.

For years two Virgin Island families have had a huge influence on how swimming is run down there. They allowed many local swimmers to accumulate swimming resumes the rest of us can only wonder at: Olympics, World Championships, Central American and Caribbean Games and Pan American Games. You name it; they went there.

I want to stress there was never anything improper in their attendance. The system’s rules allowed it and the influence of their parents ensured it happened. My point is only, should it have been allowed? I’ve helped breaststrokers 20 seconds faster than the Virgin Island version. One of them actually became eligible to compete for the Virgin Islands and won a Caribbean Island’s Championships in a record time. We exploited a loophole in the rules to do it, but nothing all that different from what goes on in these small nations all the time. Shortly after the Championships the rules were changed to make sure we never got away with that again. It seemed to me to be another example of protecting their privileged isolation.

Is it right that small nations can send these swimmers to major events because of where they were born while genuinely world class, potential winners sit at home unable to even enter? It was Rhi who gave me the idea for this article. She told me recently about a friend, Hayley McGregory at USC, who was third in the 100 and the 200 backstroke at the last US Olympic Trials (1:01.94 and 2:13.24). Wouldn’t that be enough to break your heart? No one can tell me she shouldn’t have been at the Games in Athens. At her worst, she would have made the semi-finals in both events. There are probably many of you who can give similar examples: Pablo Moralas in the men’s 100 fly, for example. I just hope McGregory can lift herself to another effort at next year’s trials. No one would deserve it more.

Alternatively she could take a quick trip to the Virgin Islands and chat up one of the power families. That way she wouldn’t even need to swim a trial and she'd be on the plane to Beijing.

I’m not sure how to solve all this. I think what I’d do is leave things as they are, but add a provision that the world’s top-twenty ranked swimmers would receive automatic entry. As world rankings are changing all the time, the IOC or FINA would have to set a date at which the top-twenty would be taken. At least that way, the semi-finals and finals would be a contest between the worlds’s best swimmers. How many would this add to already over populated Games? The table below shows the extra numbers if this was done right now.

EVENT	MEN	WOMEN
50 FR	1	4
100 FR	1	3
200 FR	2	2
400 FR	2	1
800 /1500 FR	0	4
100 BK	0	4
200 BK	3	4
100 BR	2	6
200 BR	1	6
100 FLY	3	3
200 FLY	2	3
200 IM	3	5
400 IM	3	5
TOTAL	23	50

So, the Games would be overcrowded by another 73 athletes. At least the competition would be an honest one, among the world’s best swimmers. A way to cut down the number of entrants would be to set a world-rankings cut-off point at which athletes were not longer allowed to enter. You'd annoy a fair number of people, however. You'd upset the balance that has existed in countries such as the Virgin Islands for quite some time.

One delightful Virgin Island’s moment did involve the patriarch of one of the families. We were sitting around at a Virgin Islands Swimming Federation meeting discussing whether to use the FINA points system as a method of evaluation. The patriarch fumbled in his briefcase and produced some photocopied sheets. This, he said, was an article he’d found on the internet about the use of the FINA points table. He recommended we read it. He said I might be interested as the article was from New Zealand. A quick look revealed that his discovery was an article from Swimwatch that I’d written about a year earlier. I’m a coward; I never said a word.

The matriarch side of both families had a standard answer to every suggested reform, “Oh we’ve never done it that way before,” they said. I began to wonder whether this place - a U.S. colony - was the same country that had put a man on the moon. Arriving on the mainland U.S. assured me that, in fact, it wasn’t.

Whatever happens, something needs to be done to avoid so many of the world’s best swimmers sitting at home watching a race they could win take place on television. The Games should be about determining who are the world’s fastest swimmers. While so many good athletes are left at home, the Olympics are failing to do that. For example, the selection of US professional basketball players at Barcelona in 1992 has had a beneficial effect on basketball world wide. It forced recognition of what world-class actually meant. The standard of the game went up everywhere.

Now, you may say that the above is not in the spirit of the Olympics, but this takes place at World Championships and many other international meets. If you must leave the Olympics the way they are, at least take a look at every other meet on the international calendar. At least some of these world-class sporting events need to take a look at the way they're conducted and to whom they open their doors.