FINA officially declare themselves retarded

[eldrick]

a lot of these new wr holders are going to be shocked when the textile suits come in & their times slow by 2 - 3% & they find that their new times woud be lucky to win bronze at '05 wc ( last one with fairly normal suits )

of course, 1 man who will suffer little will be phelps who was taking huge chunks off wrs prior to suits revolution & in fact competed in slower suits ( speedo ) than the ultra-quick ones ( jaked & arena ) & often wearing just leggings

i believe phelps was one guy to whom the suits made no difference at all

he wore same speedo in peking as in rome & actually got quicker in most events off a severely curtailed training regime ( due to bong-ban & semi-retirement - he put on 20 pounds )

next year - full training regime will counteract return to textile suits for him

i expect him to more or less swim the same times - 95% of other wr holders won't

[guru]

National HS Federation bans the hi-tech suits.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/20 ... htm?csp=34

[lexvid]

It seems that the "plastic fantastic" swimsuits aid quite a bit. You know all is not right when 179 WR's are set since February 2008 - 71 in 2009 to date.

For example, according to Craig Lord (Swimnews Online) the winner of the woman's 200 M breast stroke, Nadja Higl, dropped her PB by 8.26 sec's in about a month from 2:29.88 to 2:21.62.

In track that would be considered madness or implie other darker thoughts.

In Rome swimming became unrecognizeable and lost total connection with the past when they allowed suits that hydrofoiled instead of swam....

[KevinM]

At up to 500 bucks a suit (and they don't last long), no, everybody can't get the technology. It creates an unacceptable financial wedge.

If $500 is an issue, you're not thinking about breaking WRs anyway. Guys aren't coming out of mud huts in Africa and into the pool. Swimming is a sport for middle class white people.

I agree for the most part, but FINA is the governing body of all of swimming - not just of the world class element of the sport, right? Seems logical that they would want to keep things reasonable for the lower level athletes as well.

[dakota]

As of this week swimming is about as credible as professional wrestling. They're great athletes but I don't believe a damn thing I see.

I even question the old world records. I wonder if this has been an issue for years. And of course any time a two second improvement can be attributed to the swim suit, or the lane barriers, or the design of the pool, or.... what a convenient smokescreen to obscure systemic doping.

It would be one thing to freeze the world records arbitrarily but it seems to me whoever's turn it is to be on top for one year gets to have a swimming world record as a matter of course these days. To freeze it on that is cretinously retarded.

When did swimming become Formula One motor racing? At least they still have overtaking.

[Conor Dary]

At up to 500 bucks a suit (and they don't last long), no, everybody can't get the technology. It creates an unacceptable financial wedge.

If $500 is an issue, you're not thinking about breaking WRs anyway. Guys aren't coming out of mud huts in Africa and into the pool. Swimming is a sport for middle class white people.

How true. Here in Illinois the big swimming schools such as Hinsdale Central, New Trier etc. have always been from the suburbs. So the 500 dollar deal, while not cheap is not the big argument. The big problem is that the suits seem to be a huge leveler. The ordinary become great and the great well just a bit more.

If track suddenly allowed everyone to wear roller blades in meets, think of all the smucks who could stay with Geb! Even kuha could do it! :lol:

[K.I.R.]

At up to 500 bucks a suit (and they don't last long), no, everybody can't get the technology. It creates an unacceptable financial wedge.

If $500 is an issue, you're not thinking about breaking WRs anyway. Guys aren't coming out of mud huts in Africa and into the pool. Swimming is a sport for middle class white people.

[Marlow]

(3) And most importantly, it takes better technique to make effective use of a superior pole. Changing to a longer or springier pole often initially makes the vaulter fail more until their technique and athleticism catches up with it, whereas a swimmer can just put on a high-tech suit and almost immediately take a second or two off their PR.

Not exactly. I've had vaulters improve a foot the very first time they got on a new pole, because it was the right pole right then. Having the right pole is often the difference between winning and losing - it can make all the difference in the world. As I've mentioned before, I've acquired an arsenal of 30 poles for my school in the last 16 years (not counting the ones we don't use any more) and that makes us a very formidable opponent. We readily lend then out at meets to those that ask, but that's not the same as always having them available.

[sprintblox]

"The world records that have been established up to date have been established in the conditions for all of the swimmers," he said.

"They choose the swimsuits like it happened, in the conditions which were there.

But future elite swimmers won't have those suits, jackass. And those future swimmers have to compete against those suit-aided records.

The tensile strength of the high-tech suits reminds me of the bench press shirts that some powerlifters use. The shirts cradle the arms with such force that they can add over 20% to a bench press. But at least they keep separate world records for shirt-assisted bench presses.

Some important differences between these swimsuits and the pole vault are:
(1) poles are inherently expensive no matter what -- there will be $10 swimsuits but there will never be $10 poles (at least not new ones).

(2) pole vaulting will unavoidably involve the big piece of equipment called a pole -- whereas swimming doesn't have to use full-body suits. Theoretically swimmers could even swim without suits at all, but a pole-less pole vault wouldn't be a pole vault, it would be a high jump.

(3) And most importantly, it takes better technique to make effective use of a superior pole. Changing to a longer or springier pole often initially makes the vaulter fail more until their technique and athleticism catches up with it, whereas a swimmer can just put on a high-tech suit and almost immediately take a second or two off their PR.

[El Toro]

2009 list up to a couple of days ago http://www.swimnews.com/news/view/6723 Seems to about 50 with more to come no doubt.

[AS]

For some strange reason, I'm willing to bet good horse money that, when these suits are all taken off the market, as far as international competition is concerned, WRs in 2011 will still drop like flies

Horse money, eh? Not the real stuff? Very wise decision. Before you lay your bet try out these stats:

World Records set in Olympic years(not AT Olympics)
1992 - 16
1996 - 5
2000 - 33
2004 - 17
2008 - 109
2012 - 0?

Average annual world records through the key drug eras 1970-1998 ~ 18

Do you have the numbers for 2009 thus far?

[El Toro]

For some strange reason, I'm willing to bet good horse money that, when these suits are all taken off the market, as far as international competition is concerned, WRs in 2011 will still drop like flies

Horse money, eh? Not the real stuff? Very wise decision. Before you lay your bet try out these stats:

World Records set in Olympic years(not AT Olympics)
1992 - 16
1996 - 5
2000 - 33
2004 - 17
2008 - 109
2012 - 0?

Average annual world records through the key drug eras 1970-1998 ~ 18

[CookyMonzta]

For some strange reason, I'm willing to bet good horse money that, when these suits are all taken off the market, as far as international competition is concerned, WRs in 2011 will still drop like flies

[Pego]

Thank you.

[El Toro]

After listening to Mr. Wood, I still don't understand, how those suits help lesser athletes over the better ones, but he insisted, that is the case.

It's all about core stability. Up til now, better swimmers were stronger and could hold an optimal body position as both a base for the swiming stroke and to streamline the body(hugely signficant in water). Towards the end of a race this would have a greater and greater positive effect for the better swimmers as the less fit would have increasingly larger amounts of drag due to increasingly poor body shape.

The new suits are so tight (some take 20 minutes to be jammed into) and compressive that they provide the core stability and streamlining normally missing from the less fit. Of course this reduces the differential between good and second tier because the good were already close to optimal through their own efforts and so have less to gain.

Of course the bouyancy and slickness increases advantage all swimmers equally and move all times down - similar to Mondo vs cinders.