| On the Same Page The E-Newsletter of the USA Swimming Officials Committee September 2008 |
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Beijing Officials
Congratulations to the USA Swimming Officials who represented us at the Olympic Games. In the pool, Carol Zaleski was one of the deck referees, John Wilson was the starter for all the women's events and Mike Saltzstein performed stroke and turn judge duties. John Kinney and Mike Saltzstein both worked as open water officials for the inaugural Olympic 10K marathon swimming events for both men and women. Thanks from all the officials back home for doing such a great job and representing us so professionally.
Maxwell Award
Congratulations to our latest two recipients of the Maxwell Excellence Award for service to local swimming, given by Swimming World Magazine. Jay Thomas, an official with Florida Gold Coast Swimming is the July 2008 recipient, while Sarah Levine of New Jersey Swimming is the September 2008 recipient. To read more about the Maxwell Award and see a list of previous recipients, click here.
USA-S Rules
The Rules & Regulations Committee met in early June to review all the rule changes submitted by members of the USA Swimming House of Delegates. The proposed changes are posted on the USA Swimming web site and will be voted on at the House of Delegates meeting at the annual United States Aquatic Sports convention in Atlanta, GA in late September. To see the proposed changes, click here.
FINA News
The were some open water rules changes approved at the extraordinary technical congress in Manchester, England earlier this year but there weren’t any changes to the rule book for pool swimming. The next regular FINA technical congress will be held in conjunction with the FINA World Championships in Rome next summer. Regular technical congresses are scheduled every four years.
Convention News
The Official's Committee will hold a training session for officials' evaluators at the USAS annual convention in Atlanta in September.
Starter Training
The starter DVD has been out for about a year and we wanted to remind everyone that the "Training (Discussion) Points" document is a critical part of the educational experience as it points out situations where proper protocol was not used or where an unusual situation arose. Please be sure to use the document when using the starter DVD for training.