MSC Ops Blog
Free stroke videos on Margarita Island in January
Masters Swimming Canada will again be providing free stroke video taping at the Oannes Masters swim camp on Margarita Island, Venezuela.
This swim camp has been running for a number of years and is an opportunity to swim coached workouts with other masters swimmers in an outdoor 50m pool at a all-inclusive resort on Margarita Island. Or lounge on the beach. Or frolic in the surf. Your choice!
The early-bird rates end this Friday, October 14th so if you are interested get in touch with the camp organizer, Kelvin Landolt asap!
More information at www.oannesathletics.com
Posted at 08:28PM Oct 12, 2011 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
FINA World Masters Championships coming to Montreal in 2014!
FINA has officially awarded the 2014 World Masters Championships to Montreal!
Here's the FINA Press Release.
Posted at 04:57PM Jul 14, 2011 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
ParticipACTION: Bring out your sporty side!
Masters Swimming Canada is a member of the ParticipACTION Partners Network. The PPN provides a toolkit for promoting physical activity including the following article on how sport participation can benefit you and your community!
Quoting from the article:
“We want every Canadian to find a way to build more sport and physical activity into their lives,” says
Murumets. “If you start with activities you enjoy, you can build your way up to a healthier, more active
lifestyle, and our whole society will benefit.”
And what physical activity could be more enjoyable than swimming?
Here's the complete ParticipACTION article: Bring out your sporty side!
Posted at 09:21PM Jun 21, 2011 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
2011 Nationals Meet Package Posted
The meet package for this year's nationals is now available at:
Posted at 05:04PM Feb 07, 2011 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
FINA clarifies suit rules for Masters
FINA has issued a clarification of the suit rules, which conforms to the MSC interpretation, i.e. that Masters may wear suits that aren't on the FINA approved suit list and don't have the FINA approval label, as long as the suits conform to the FINA rules with respect to coverage and material. For details and exact wording see the FINA Memorandum:
http://mymsc.ca/blogs/ops/resource/BL8.5-MastersSwimsuits.pdf
Posted at 03:26PM Jun 17, 2010 by Lindsay in General | Comments[1]
XIII FINA World Masters 2010
The fourth newsletter from the organizers of the XIII FINA World Masters 2010 in Sweden this July/August was sent out in early January, you can read it here:
http://www.carmamail.com/mail/OBS?muid=1X58Du358458179
Posted at 02:06PM Jan 20, 2010 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
First four clubs make it around PEI!
So far Etobicoke, Westmount Y, Aurora Ducks, and the Halifax Trojans have made it around PEI in the "Summerside to Summerside 'Round the Island Club Relay Challenge".
Etobicoke is well into it's second lap of the island and has already passed the main pack. Westmount and Aurora continue to go neck to neck with Westmount completing its first lap just ahead of Aurora.
See where your club is on the swim around the Island at:
http://mymsc.ca/maps/pei.jsp
The top 40 clubs are shown. Distances are the total distances entered by club members in the Million Metre Challenge since October 1st.
More challenges will be introduced in November, including individual challenges and more club challenges!
Posted at 12:51AM Oct 16, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
Video of swims at Nationals available
This year we captured all the swimming at nationals on video! A lot of this video is available on the web via youtube, and we're uploading more every day!
Note that youtube supports different video quality levels, at the bottom of the video there will be an HD or HQ button which allows you to watch in higher resolution and better quality. High quality playback requires a faster computer to play smoothly than the default quality.
There are two ways to access the video, one is to just go to youtube and sort through the videos, the other is to go to the meet results on mymsc, find a swim that you want to watch in the results, and click the heat number to get to the video of that heat.
The videos on youtube are at: http://www.youtube.com/MscMncVideo The list of videos is several pages long and the title indicates the event and heat number.
The meet results on mymsc are accessed at: http://mymsc.ca/ShowMeet.jsp?id=263 This takes you to a screen which allows you to either look at the complete results (just click the "Show" button) or you can specify a specific swimmer, club, or event to limit the results.
Once you are looking at the results just move your mouse over the heat number and a tool-tip will pop up showing the heat number (rightmost column) and lane number of the swimmer, and if the video of the heat is available the word "video" will also appear. If the word video does appear just click the link to go to the video page.
So far, all the Sunday relays have been posted along with most events swum in the deep end on Saturday (men's events) and Sunday (women's events), we're currently uploading Monday's heats. The complete set of videos is well over 100 Gigabytes so we're starting with the shorter races and it will take a while to get everything loaded. The video of the shallow end was shot with one video file per event (we only had one cameraman to run two cameras!) so those videos have to be split into individual heats, which will take time. Come back as time goes on to see more and more videos!
To view the relays go to http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MscMncVideo&view=videos&query=Relay, links from the relay results to the videos will be added soon.
Posted at 11:36PM Jun 01, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[1]
Nationals Covered by Swimming World
Swimming World Magazine has a story on its website about Nationals with the headline:
Canadian Masters Short Course National Championships Demolish FINA Masters World Record Books
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/21261.asp
Posted at 05:53PM May 28, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
Psych Sheets out for Nationals!
Please see the 2009 Nationals web site for the psych sheets!
Posted at 08:09AM May 02, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
Mastering Swimming - the book
I recently received a review copy of the book Mastering Swimming, Your guide for fitness, training, and competition by Jim Montgomery and Mo Chambers. What with the holidays and upcoming travel plans I'm not going to have time to do a proper review until April. In the meantime, here is the table of contents, which gives you an idea of what is covered.
The table of contents:
Part I Taking the Plunge
Chapter 1 Start With a Vision, Train With a Plan
Chapter 2 Set the Stage for Success
Chapter 3 Develop Your Water Sense
Part II Fine-Tuning Your Strokes
Chapter 4 Freestyle
Chapter 5 Backstroke
Chapter 6 Butterfly
Chapter 7 Breaststroke
Chapter 8 Starts, Turns, and Finishes
Part III Conditioning for Success
Chapter 9 Workout Essentials
Chapter 10 Pool Workouts
Chapter 11 Dry-Land Training
Chapter 12 Open-Water Training
Chapter 13 Make Your Plan for Success
Part IV Competition
Chapter 14 Competing in Pool Events
Chapter 15 Competing in Open Water
Posted at 03:18PM Jan 08, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[2]
Nouveau règlement
Le 7 décembre le conseil d'administration de MNC a ratifié une nouvelle version de la partie concernant les règles des nages dans le règlement de MNC. La traduction du règlement est disponible ici :
Ces règles prennent effet le 1er janvier 2009.
Il n'y a qu'une règle officielle qui ait changé et il s'agit du changement de la règle de faux départ en une règle de non faux départ. La règle de non faux départ est la norme dans les compétitions internationales de maitres et dans les compétitions de non maitres.
De plus la formulation de plusieurs règles a été changée afin de réduire les interprétations contradictoires.
Un exemple dont les nageurs devraient être conscients est que quelque chose d'aussi simple que le port d'une montre est désormais clairement contraire au règlement. Par le passé de nombreux officiels se contentaient de disqualifier un nageur s'ils le voyaient utiliser sa montre afin de régler son allure, selon les nouvelles règles n'importe quel nageur vu portant une montre sera disqualifié.
La formulation des règles de la nage libre a été changée afin de clarifier que certaines parties du corps doivent briser la surface à un moment ou à un autre de chaque cycle du mouvement de nage plutôt que tout le temps. Dans certains cas des officiels ont disqualifié des athlètes nageant la brasse dans des épreuves de nage libre parce qu'ils s'étaient complètement submergés pendant une partie du cycle de nage alors que les règles interdisaient au nageur de se submerger entièrement sauf dans les 15 m maximum autorisés avant de refaire surface à la suite d'un départ ou d'un virage.
La règle de la brasse a aussi abandonné la formulation disant que l'unique ondulation doit être effectuée alors que le nageur est complètement submergé. Certains nageurs ont été disqualifiés pour avoir brisé la surface de l'eau avec leur ondulation ou pour avoir effectué l'ondulation après avoir fait surface.
La règle du papillon a aussi été modifiée afin de clarifier qu'il n'est pas légal de seulement faire une ondulation qui ne soit pas accompagnée d'un mouvement des bras.
Lorsque les nageurs sont deux par ligne d'eau, un nageur qui ne reste pas de son coté de la ligne ou qui a un contact physique avec l'autre nageur sera désormais disqualifié et obligé de sortir du bassin.
L'appendice 1 du règlement offre la liste des différences avec les groupes d'âge et les règles internationales.
Posted at 07:27PM Jan 07, 2009 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
New rulebook
On December 7th, the MSC board approved a new version of the Swimming Rules portion of the MSC rulebook. The English version of the rules is here:
These rules come into effect January 1st, 2009.
There is only one official rule change which is the switch from a one false start rule to a no false start rule. The no false start rule is the standard rule in international Masters competition and non-Masters competition.
In addition, the wording of several rules has been changed to reduce inconsistent interpretation.
One example that swimmers should be aware of is that merely wearing a watch is now explicitly against the rules. In the past many officials would only DQ a swimmer if they observed that the swimmer was using the watch for pacing purposes, under the new rules any swimmer observed to be wearing a watch will be disqualified.
The wording of the freestyle rules has been changed to clarify that some part of the body has to break the surface at some point in each stroke cycle rather than at all times. In some cases officials disqualified some athletes swimming breaststroke in freestyle events for totally submerging for part of their stroke cycle on the grounds that the rules prohibited the swimmer from totally submerging except for in the maximum 15m distance before surfacing after starts and turns.
The breaststroke rule also has dropped the wording saying that the single dolphin kick needs to be performed whilst wholly submerged. Some swimmers had been disqualified for breaking the surface with the kick or performing the kick while on the surface.
The butterfly rule has also been modified to clarify that it is not legal to simply kick without an arm action.
When swimming two to a lane, a swimmer that fails to stay in their half of the lane or that has physical contact with the other swimmer will now be disqualified and ordered from the pool.
Appendix 1 of the rules lists differences from age group and international rules.
Posted at 05:09PM Dec 10, 2008 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
Sports Participation in Canada, 2005
The following are some brief excerpts from the Statistics Canada study: Sports Participation in Canada, 2005
Statistics Canada – Catalogue no. 81-595-MIE2008060
It is interesting to note that the report deals primarily with team sports, excluding activities like running, (non-competitive) and weight lifting, and I note that triathlon is only mentioned in the appendices.
Guidelines for determining whether a physical activity fell within scope as a ‘sport’ were determined by Sport Canada. Specifically, a sport is an activity that involves two or more participants engaging for the purpose of competition. Sport involves formal rules and procedures, requires tactics and strategies, specialized neuromuscular skills and a high degree of difficulty and effort. The competitive nature of sport implies the development of trained coaching personnel.
respondents aged 15 and over in the 10 provinces were asked whether they or any other household members had regularly participated in any sport during the previous 12 months. Regularly means at least once a week during the season or for a certain period of the year.
National sport participation rate continues to decline
The national sport participation rate1 dropped in 2005, a continuation of the downward trend that was observed in the 1998 General Social Survey results. Participation in sport declined from 45% in 1992 to 28% in 2005 in Canada. In 1998, more than a third (34%) of the Canadian population aged 15 and over had participated in sport on a regular basis; seven years later, the figure was about one quarter of the population. That was down from 9.6 million Canadians in 1992 to 7.3 million in 2005.
Participation highly concentrated in a few sports
Out of nearly 100 sports played in Canada, participation is highly concentrated in about 20 sports led by golf, ice hockey, swimming, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, skiing and cycling. For men, concentration was mostly in hockey, golf, basketball, baseball and soccer, in that order. A quite different picture emerges for women. They preferred swimming, golf, soccer, volleyball and skiing.
Active participation declining while volunteering in sports increasing
In contrast to a declining active sport participation, volunteering in sports showed notable increases overall. The number of amateur coaches increased 1.6% from 1998 to almost 1.8 million in 2005. Similarly, over 2 million Canadians volunteered their time as administrators or helpers, up 18% from 1998. However, the number of adult Canadians who volunteered as referees, officials or umpires decreased 15% to 800,000 in 2005 after it peaked at 937,000 in 1998.
Relaxation ranked the most important benefit of sport participation
Active Canadians cited relaxation as the most important benefit of sport participation. In 2005, 73% of active Canadians ranked relaxation as the most beneficial outcome of participating in sport. Physical health and fitness came second with 68%. Improvement in social networks through association with new friends and acquaintances was ranked the least important at 34%.
Participation in swimming by individuals over 15:
| Active Participants | Belonging To Clubs | |
| 252,000 | 81,000 | Men |
| 513,000 | 141,000 | Women |
| 764,000 | 221,000 | Total (2.9% of population) |
According to swimming.ca SNC's goal is to have 70,000 registered swimmers by 2012. More information on how many of those 221,000 club swimmers are 15-18 would be helpful! Why do we only have 10,000 members registered with MSC?
Children's participation in sport driven by parental involvement
In 2005, the participation rate was only 35% for children aged 5 to 14 with neither of their parents involved in sport compared to 57% if at least one parent was an active participant.
A possible lessen here is that if you want active children become a Masters Swimmer!
Participation in tournaments highest among youths
The proportion of active Canadians participating in tournaments decreases with age. They are most likely to be young and still in school. The school environment is typically conducive to competitive sport at all levels of schooling. Schools have the facilities and infrastructure that make it easier for students to be part of teams that engage in tournaments.In 2005, 59% or almost 6 out of every 10 active Canadian youths aged 15 to 18 participated in tournaments. This rate was about twice the rate for active Canadians aged 35 and over. This is a trend that has remained stable over the past 13 years.
However, those in the 19 to 34 age group slightly increased their participation in tournaments over this period. In 1992, 3 out of every 10 active persons in this age group competed in tournaments. By 2005, 4 out of 10 participated in tournaments.
Posted at 07:12PM Oct 17, 2008 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]
Million Metre Updates
The last few weeks I've been preoccupied with registration system issues, that will be the subject of a future post, and I've been neglecting updates to the Million Metre Challenge page. Some of the update process is automatic, but I was doing the parts of the page with pictures manually. Paul Boisvert mentioned that his promotion up to the 3,000,000m group was overdue and that was enough to prompt me to rewrite the code that displays people with pictures.
From now on the order of the pictures, and their placement at the different levels, will be updated each time the totals table is updated, which should be at least once a week.
So, those of you that have made it past 1,000,000m and supplied a picture can now see where you rank in all time placement, and see who is moving up and who is falling behind...
Happy laps!
Posted at 11:41AM Sep 20, 2008 by Lindsay in General | Comments[0]