Yeah, that's an interesting move. Comments seen on Facebook chatter: "dropping the masters age to 30 is nothing more than some money grabbing & placating move to curry favor with that demographic and those in their late 20’s nearing that age group..." Might have a point there. USAW wants the "up and coming" masters to go their way (USAW/UMWF), not the USAWM/IMWA way.
I'm still aiming for USAWM/IMWA for 2024, but we'll see how the year goes after that. I'll have membership in both.
Sad that there will be caveats to someone medaling and claiming to be a national or international champion (i.e., it will only be in one of two federations), but such is life. From what I've seen over the past couple of years, Masters Worlds is highly dependent on who is there due to where it is, anyway. So even if you win a World Championship, it's not really that you're the best in the world in that age/wt/gender class. It's just that you did the best among those who showed up for that event. At 2022 Worlds in Orlando, it was something like 80% USA competitors, with others from around the world but not in great numbers. At 2023 Worlds in Poland a few weeks ago, USA was about 15% of the competitors. Most of the rest were Europeans. In contrast, for the young athletes, if you're a contender, you go, because that's your job, partially or fully. Masters usually have a day job and might not have the money or time to go to the big meets.
