Okay so maybe the situation is the same in the US and you have a hard time recruiting swimmers.
Why are American swimmers the best in the world? Better coaching? A better recruiting system? Better funding? A better club system? Better university competition?
In Australia swimming is bigger than soccer - they have no problem getting the best talent in that country, yet you guys smoked them in Athens.
What’s the secret?
Many countries will say that the population of the states gives us a huge advantage and I will agree with that. Numbers yes…but…
More people more sports. We have so many sports to offer and we have a generation of X-gamers.
Charlie hit it on the head…the NCAA’s and I agree. But I think it is the legacy of great coaches that keeps things going. Over the last few years I want to go up to Calgary to coach swimming since Cascade has such a large program. I feel that that size club can offer me enough bodies to hone a few 50m and 100m sprinters. I don’t know to many canadian swim coaches and it seems that many don’t have confidence in their own programs. I think the structure of the DI colleges help bring passion since club swimming can get boring for kids. I don’t have a solution but I bet that my personality would be a big and drastic change up north. I still see swimmers with outdated techniques, bland training sets, and lack of long term improvement. I have only sent a few HS swimmers to nationals so I am just a small pawn.
Well I’m hopping back on the Canadian bandwagon - we’ve just won our 2nd gold medal of the Olympics! Lori-Ann Muenzer has won the gold medal in the women’s sprint cycling event. It’s a bounty of medals for Canada over the last few days. United Arab Emirates - eat our dust! 
On another topic, is anyone else as appalled as I am over the gymnastics judging? We have a Korean with a bronze who should have a gold (though NBC won’t admit it). Marian Dragelescu falls on his ass in the vault and still wins the bronze over Kyle Shewfelt - and then last nite the crowd booed so much that the judges had to change Nemov’s score in the high bar!
That’s the beauty of track - you just run from point A to point B and whoever gets there first wins.