Reply to Divisionals really shows why the unfair birthday rule matters

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On our team, in the younger ages, most of the divisionals swimmers were swimming in the “wrong” age group.  11 year olds swimming as 9/10. 9 year olds swimming as 8&under. In the older kids, many of those dominating came back from college to swim a final year.

This rule was literally cooked up in a back room by the parents of summer birthday kids. It should be done away with. We follow USA Swimming rules for everything else. We should for aging up as well. [/quote]

I was curious if this is even true. So lets look at the NVSL results for divisional in the top 3 divisions for boys 9/10

Division 1 Freestyle: 4/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old placed 2nd
Division 2 Freestyle: 5/12 are 9 years old. 9 year olds placed 2nd, 3rd, and 5th
Division 3 Freestyle: 3/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 3rd

Division 1 Backstroke: 4/12 are 9 years old. 9 yard old finished 1st!
Division 2 Backstroke: 4/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 2nd and 4th
Division 3 Backstroke: 2/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 2nd

Division 1 Breaststroke: 4/12 are 9 year olds
Division 2 Breaststroke: 7/12 are 9 years old. 9 year olds finished 1st, 3rd, 6th!
Division 3 Breaststroke: 1/12 is 9 years old

Division 1 Fly: 3/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 5th
Division 2 Fly: 5/12 are 9 years old. 9 year olds finished 1st and 5th!
Division 3 Fly: 5/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 1st!

Division 1 IM: 6/12 are 9 years old. 9 year olds finished 1st and 3rd!
Division 2 IM: 7/12 are 9 years old. 9 year olds finished 1st, 3rd, and 5th!
Division 3 IM: 3/12 are 9 years old. 9 year old finished 3rd

Doesn't seem like "over age" (which is not the right term anyway) are dominating 9/10 boys. 9 year olds won 4/15 events.

Seems like this is a non issue.[/quote]

Not sure this assessment is completely accurate. Looking at the 9 year olds (a few of whom are actually 10, but are considered 9 because of the summer cutoff), these kids are actually swimming in the RIGHT age group. What would be a better assessment is looking at the 10 year olds in the 9-10 age group, some of which are actually competing when their true age is 11.

An example of this is looking at club swimmers who do long course over the summer (which makes you swim your true age). There are some club swimmers whose times are just okay, but are impressive for summer league because of the age advantage.[/quote]

What are you talking about?  If they were born between June 2nd 2013 and June 1 2015 they are the right age.  The fact that they had a birthday after the cut off doesn't make them not the right age.  They are the age that the league has decided is allowed to swim in that meet.  That makes them the "right" age.

[b]Summer swim is a team sport.  Name another team sport where kids age up on their birthday.[/b]  I can't think of any.  The fact that the relatively small segment of swim that is club age group swimming does is irrelevant.  They're the outliers, and are doing something entirely different from summer swim.

And your focus on kids swimming LC is absurd, because any kid who does club and rec in the same sport, at least any other sport, knows that rec is about having fun with your friends.  Trying to make rec into club so you can beat the rec kids is really really really terrible sportsmanship. [/quote]

This is the best and most logical response in my opinion. [/quote]

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