ASA Long Course Champs

[Steve]

A report on the first day of competition is now in the pullbuoy log - at http://www.pullbuoy.co.uk/log

There's also a link to the sports systems live results service (which the ASA have done their usual good job of hiding on their site...:rolleyes: )

[Katie]

Apparently it's hardly the gala of the century! Can someone please tell me what the point of this gala is? What is the difference between the British Championships and the Long Course Nationals? These are the differences I've managed to come up with:
1) their names;
2) one's in a better pool than the other (No offence to you people from Coventry);
3) people do fast times at one of them, and erm... (diplomatically typing) not so fast times at the other.

Anything else? If anyone has any ideas please let me know!! :D

[lane4]

Errrm, one is the British Championships organised by ASFGB and the other is the English Championships organised by the ASA. I thought that was obvious to most observers.

[Katie]

Surely if it was that obvious I wouldn't have asked???? A number of other people I have asked this didn't have a clue either. One person did come up with another difference though-- one has the word Jubilee in the title... :rolleyes:

[lane4]

British does not mean English!
Once upon a time the ASA ran all of swimming in England (being an English organisation they would do this). Bodies such as SASA and WASA soon then formed to run swimming in Scotland and god forbidden places like Wales. Then along came the ASFGB to basically do nothing more initially than have a pretty powerless position overseeing these bodies and have an informal chat once every few months. However, once lottery cash was available it had to go ASFGB as the lottery is British not English. So then we started getting GB performance directors, national centres etc etc. Gradually the short course and long course Nationals of old started to become 'British' events where international teams for Britain would be selected. However, Scotland and Wales still had their own Nationals of course, but the ASA felt the English Nationals had become hijacked into being the British. Very jealous of the rapidly growing success in Scotland the ASA felt they had to keep something going otherwise they were in severe danger of becoming irrelevant in the competitive swimming world. So they now keep a separate 'English' as opposed to 'British' Nationals around about this time of year. Of course it is a pretty irrelevant meet for many of the top swimmers and nor is it a priority for good age groupers as they are all preparing for Age Group Nationals in a few weeks time. Consequently it ends up in Coventry, with hardly any swimmers and poor times being produced. Which all means, the ASA are going to get even more annoyed that their power base in the sport is eroding at a forever growing rate. The ASA are severly annoyed that Scotland has: (1) a National Swimming Academy; (2) a National Coach; (3) an increasingly successful squad of swimmers. ASA has none of these things as almost everything you see happening in England (e.g. Sweetenham, Atkinson, centres, WC Potential, main meets that people care about) are British! LOL!

:p :D :devil:

[Katie]

...and they all lived happily ever after! Or not :devil: :)

[bobby]

Thanks for that very interesting, comprehensive explanation, lane 4. I did not know the difference before, either.

[Pete]

Trials for major championships have devalued the status. Maybe the whole thing needs a rethink as trials happen every year. The trials becoming the national champs. where everyone is aiming for.:devil: