So, USMS doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of USA Swimming. However, USMS is not the “governing body” and in reality neither is USA Swimming.
United States Aquatic Sports (FINA Member) is the federation for the following sub bodies: USA Swimming, USA Diving, US Synchronized Swimming, USA Water Polo, and USMS.
So it would be more like if USAT becomes the parent of: Draft Legal, Non-Draft, Gravel, and Winter triathlon spinning off into separate entities.
So coming back to this with Katie Zafares now leading a USAT funded women’s program, I think USAT needs a bit of a thump to the head here. Either focus on seed grants for NCAA programs or do this odd thing. Which honestly comes off as “jobs for the girls” to us a term from Rugby. (Jobs for the Boys)
Having negative cash assets two years in a row for an organization that had a lot in the bank several years ago is poor…but then funding another DTE? The numbers don’t make sense.
Been to USPC btw, I expected a lot more than an office building.
So good news is that the ncaa tri movement has almost made the finish line. Unofficially 40 schools have made the required ncaa sports sponsorship requirements which means we are now going to be under official review by the NCAA starting very soon. Officially it still will go through the ncaa vetting process (likely an 18 month process), but if it’s truly made the finish line, USAT’s financial investment needs are going to be almost over for ncaa tri movement.
Once it’s under the ncaa officially, the needs from USAT will be way less, and there won’t really be a need to fund any new programs (or help current programs). Especially as it’s almost a given more new programs will come on easier when it’s an ncaa championship sponsored sport vs emerging sport status.
Re: NCAA: Just in time for the House settlement to ruin it all.
Olympic sports are in trouble in general on college campuses. The last in (triathlon) will be the first to go, I would think.
My understanding is the House settlement is a huge can of worms that no one understands really how it will play out yet.
That said, most likely, budgets are going to be cut, rosters are going to be cut, and there’s the question of how schools are already spending money on male vs female sports, which in this case, NCAA womens triathlon would be pretty crazy to cut, while sustaining funding for other male dominated sports.
It’s bad timing, more so in that we aren’t a championship status sport, and the ncaa could simply close shop on gaining it. But being that all these emerging sports are female sports they won’t because it would look bad.
I don’t think olympic sports are in trouble then they have been in the past. I think the difference is going to be in how the olympic sports are supported on your campus (IE- D1 program supported at D3 level). Plenty of schools have cut plenty of programs in the past…sometimes the “threat” of ending a program suddenly gets a huge influx of cash from the supporters and sometimes it doesn’t and sports are cut.
What’s interesting is that while ncaa tri has a major recruiting issue with lack of HS athletes, what the new roster cap limits mean is that there are even bigger opportunity to recruit single sport swimmers into the sport now more than ever. Swimming is going to be one of the toughest hit sports because many more athletes are “walk ons” and produce than likely on scholarship. So it means there is going to be more D1 swimmers swimming at lower level D1 or D2 now more than ever. So when 1 door is sorta closed, there’s always another door to open if your paying attention. XC programs still have track to put kids in more easily than swimming does. Like 30 roster cap is going to change the recruiting requirements of all the big boys now. Now being multievent versatile is more important than single event dominance, and remember Diving is part of that roster number. So in reality it’s more like 24-26 swimmers and 4-6 divers.
College athletics is one of the biggest drivers of enrollment for most universities. Most universites aren’t the academia gold that the Ivy’s or MIT etc are. Those schools could close up sports today and still fill their school w/ academic focused students only. But the majority of schools use college athletics as a huge enrollment factor in paying the bills.
So I think the biggest change is that your going to likely see less overall money for the “olympic” sports once it’s figured out with title ix ramifications. Good news for most sports like swimming / running and tri. Most kids are academic high achievers so they generally can get academic money if some (or all) of the athletic scholarships are lost.
I’ve been in recruiting now for 3 years. The biggest thing I’ve learned from parents truly isn’t that they want a free ride to college. It’s they actually want an program that benefits their kid and gives them structure. Most families recognize “full scholarship” doesn’t happen in olympic sports, so they aren’t “holding out” and playing school vs school. For the most part if they can get 1/8th of the yearly cost paid for, they’ll gladly accept that. With the cost of college these days, you can’t “waste” any time or classes, and the structure of college athletics (IE keeping them away from making “bad” choices while sitting in their dorm all hours of the day) a lot of parents see it as a good thing.
So I and most people I talk with don’t think it’s necessarily the end of olympic sports or non-rev sports. Just that it’s now going to be much different than what most are used too. Again will there be casualities, yes of course. But I don’t think we’ll see massive olympic sports dropped from college campuses. You’ll just see a shift in how they are ran. Essentially this is going to make high academic profile for HS athletes even more important.
One advantage that ncaa tri has over almost every other sport on college campuses. It’s one of the cheapest sports because it has such few competition dates (min of 4 max of 7…it’s actually 6 but the postseason event doesn’t count). Travel budget for that is just not as expensive as other sports and for the most part even adding the expense of bikes + trainer room setup, it’s actually fairly affordable. Now if you are a school that is stuck in middle of no where with no teams to compete locally your “travel budget” means you now have a bullesye on you. Schools in the carolinas and south area and midwest are at a huge advantage for the most part because they can drive to every race location. INCAA tri actually went up in roster cap so that’s going to be a bonus, and add in that there will be very little “revenue sharing” in our sport because well we aren’t on tv, like ever. So the school is only going to owe the xc or triathlete $7.12 a year vs the $30k (made up but semi realistic number) a year for football, etc.\
What it may end up doing is creating a sport that the “stronger” programs outside of the power 5 schools (only a few of those currently) may end up being D2 programs. D2 and D3 aren’t part of the House settlement, so if the D1’s cut scholarships to very little amounts, what you may end up seeing is that "D2 now is the “D1” " that people flood too for athletic scholarships.
This is all a tangent to basically say, if NCAA TRI makes NCAA championship status, the support requirements that USAT feels and drives it currently will go away to almost nothing. So in that aspect they can then find a new pathway to support (IE the new women’s development team pathway).
Knibb implicitly complements US Cycling compared to USAT in her Bob Babbitt interview at Taupo and looks forward to LA28 (or not) (at 7:38):
And also implies perhaps how unsupportive USAT.
You see it one way, I see it another way in that it just shows you how important an person’s race goals basically have to match the events. Shocking that Knibb really really enjoys the TT format on the bike or the non-draft events more than the itu DL events. A) She’s stronger at them b) it removes a bunch of outside influences.
Shocking that an federation when having to deal with that type of athlete and “demands” is suddenly deemed “unsupportive”. It’s a 2 way street here from a funding prospective; you can’t take the support when it suits you and then complain about it when it doesn’t work for you (that’s basically life). Knibb at best was going to be a “maybe” with medaling based on the course and the sport in 2024 in the individual event. She was only going to win a medal in the individual if she got in a break. Any other result she was not going to factor. All that is evaluated year ahead of time when demanding/asking for funding/resources to "provide’ for athletes at the Games.
When people talk about federations being supportive and unsupportive I sometimes wonder if they recognize the level of details federations have to show in order to get funding from USOC, etc. USOC doesn’t write blank checks to every federation sport that goes to the Olympics. You have to showcase why you need the funding and support, and frankly heading into Paris, USAT was not a “strong” nation for medal winning potential. Which means your resources are going to be less than an federation that has better chances. USOC wants to support winners, not participants.
And USAT certainly doens’t have an endless supply of money. But of course no one wants to ever be told “no” or else they are now the big bad federation that “doesnt support it’s athletes”.
Knibb is an incredible athlete, that basically isn’t suited for ITU racing even more so now when the race courses are only getting more and more neutered. Go crush the TT and non-draft like we’ve never seen.
It seemed one of her biggest gripes was how USAT basically had a one size fits all approach and were dismissive of her thoughts and ideas of what allows her to perform to her potential such as being forced to stay in the team village. Seemed to clearly say USOC were all about ‘what can we do to make you faster’ where USAT were ‘to bad so sad this is how we do it’.
Also had to laugh at Bob dropping bombs on Sam Long with the joke about him asking the women how to swim
So the question is, did USAT have a team “house” or hotel like USA Cycling and still force the athletes to stay in the shitty dorm athlete village, or did everyone from USAT stay in the athlete village. The athlete village is not just athletes, it’s anyone apart of a sport or federation (race officials, athletes, coaches, federation admin). If they all were in the athlete village and she asked to go off site (on her own dime) and they still said no, that would be a problem. If she’s comparing 1 federation accomodations to another, that’s been happening that way for likely ever. You think Lebron James and Kevin Durant are staying in the “athlete village”, hell no. So I don’t think the USOC goes to every athlete or sport and checks in to make sure they are in the best situation possible, not even a chance. They know pretty much the medal count and basically fund it based on that projections well before the Games even happen.
The thing with Knibb is that she’s an complete outlier. It probaly is hard as hell to “manage” her expectations/desires because her strength and successes are essentially in the sports that are complete essentially “individual” races. Which is sorta the opposite of ITU completely and so everyone in the HP staff is focused on ITU “demands of competition” and putting that as the priority. But when you look at Knibb and her strengths, she wants the freedom to “free agent” herself enough so that she gets herself fulfilled. Which more power to you, and most of the time the federation can pull rank because MOST of the time, itu athletes don’t have any “hand” in the conversation (Seinfeld reference if you didn’t know what that was referring too). They basically have to bend to the knee, which Knibb with her non-draft background can just say “screw this” if she gets jerked around enough. Now THANK GOD she had the relay leg of all relay legs to finish and get the medal for USA or it was going to end up a disaster for both Knibb and USAT in Paris.
Whatever the situation they have obviously upset her to the point she effectively wants nothing to do with USAT, not a great outcome…
But the situation dynamics matter because again not every federation is treated the same by the USOC. And she was going to do nothing for USAT after Paris, that was clearly understood 18 months ago when she started training for Kona and the beginnings of her long course career. I knew being around her at 15 years old “she’s going to be a LC beast” and that her time in ITU was going to be “short” compared to her LC career. If 70.3 was the olympic distance she never would have even done DL racing to even begin with. She only went into the itu “pathway” because of it being the olympic format. EVERYONE knew she was never going to stay in ITU, her focus/dream has always been Kona, that was clear as early as she started triathlon (and not in a “oh i watched it on TV and thought it was cool”…in a “holy shit this gal is going to win that race as many times as she wants to, she’s that good”…and this was watching her and getting to know her at 15 years old)
But no it’s never a good outcome, but what I’m trying to add is context. Especially if it’s all being blamed on the federation. There may actually be context to why they make the decisions they do. And of course like most things in life, it usually all comes down to funding (or lack of).
USOC wants to make sure the ones that are the best medal favorites have the best resources to then win those medals. And that’s not the case for every American ahtlete. So there are athletes who all “represent” the good ole U S of A and all get different funding and support. I don’t know that Knibb was likely a medal favorite in pre Paris discussions other than an “has a chance” if everything went right. My guess is that only Pearson was considered a medal threat (he won a medal at the '22 world champs so likely just before the final “medal projections” / funding conversations between federations and the USOC; Knibb got 4th in the same '22 world champs race). The MTR likely wasn’t even considered a medal favorite, as they had disasterous results. Pre Paris, the US MTR had some really really disasterous and weak results, that likely put USAT in a bind with funding opportunities from USOC.
And so many times when a federation wants money they have to “show their work”. IE- show the race results to dictate why X will win a medal w/ the funding. The 2 biggest races for a federation will always be a world championships and olympics. Those results will always be the biggest factor in how federations get funded.
I still can’t believe USA Cycling has money to do more than schedule a breakfast.
@BDoughtie here I thought as a Gwen supporter you’d find this analogous.