USA Swimming is Raising the Bar

If you are a serious swimmer, you don’t just train and swim laps for weight loss, fitness, and fun. You have much bigger goals in mind. For instance, you train to win races and to qualify for large events and meets.
Which is why it’s BIG NEWS that this year, USA Swimming is changing the rules.
 

New Qualifying Standards

As the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics approach, USA swimming has decided to lift their standards. This year, they have cut many of their qualifying times for the 2015 Winter National Championships down significantly.
It seems as though they want to narrow the pool (pun intended) of athletes to a more elite crowd. That way, they can really prune and prepare the cream of the crop for the Olympic team.
 

What are the New Requirements?

These are the cuts that got faster this year: “Men’s short course yards: 100 free, 200 free, 1000 free, All non-free and IM races, All women’s long course events, Women’s short course yards: All non-free and IM races.”
Of course, not all of the events qualifying times got faster. But of the ones that did, they were cut down significantly. This is going to cause a few repercussions.
We can expect to see a couple of consequences to this big change. “First, (1) it should drastically reduce the size of the meet … (2) it will give college teams some more interesting decisions as to whether to schedule in Winter Nationals as a team or not.”
 

Underwater Audio

So, if you need to try more than ever now to meet these times, we have just the trick to keep you motivated: Underwater Audio’s Waterproof iPod Shuffle.
It’ll help you keep swimming at your best even when you feel spent.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to write us in the section below.