Women's 400 IM

From what I can tell, other links about the 400 IM seem to posit doping, so I'll post this one.

she's dropping time like an age grouper! oh wait

With their grueling training, Olympic athletes can swim numerous/back to back events. I don't find this suspicious. They recover quickly. I find it much more suspicious to not be even a clear medal favorite, smash your PR, smash the tech suit WR and come back in the last 100 in 58+. Also quite odd that she is not in the 400 free or other freestyle events. :shakeshead:I posted the following last night under "NEWS" at http://www.iswimcoach.net... Ye Shiwen for real??? Yesterday and today , Ross Tucker, Ph.D., The Science of Sport (Republic of South Africa), www.sportsscientists.com/, published two articles which included lengthy comments regarding the questions about Ye Shiwen's performance in the Women's 400 IM. In the article yesterday, he discusses, among other things, the physiology of being able to finish that race faster than Ryan Lochte over the last 50. In today's article, he expands on his thoughts from yesterday, and also quotes comments from John Leonard, Executive Director of the American Swim Coaches Association. Tucker (and many others) have questioned Ye Shiwen's ability to swim a 58.68 last 100 free in the 400 IM, and state that it certainly raises suspicions. She shouldn't automatically be considered guilty, but her performance should certainly be examined. How can someone who was about 23 seconds slower than Ryan Lochte over the first 300 meters of the 400 IM then swim just .03 slower for just the last 100? Here are the links to the two blog entries from Tucker. What are your thoughts? July 30: www.sportsscientists.com/search July 31: www.sportsscientists.com/.../london-2012-day-3-thoughts.html

Is there a possibility of an adulterated suit advantage?

I agree with this statement and Lochte's split was not that good in comparison to the other 3 legs of the race. Here are two point to prove this. His first 300 meters was the best in swimming history. He was 3:06.5 at the 300 mark and was .55 seconds ahead of the WR by Phelps and his split at the 300 mark was 3:07.15 and if he would have swam his 2008 race he would have ran down Lochte on the final 50. I remember seeing the line go away from Lochte on the last 50. I am not trying to downgrade the swim because I don't know what his strategy was but I know that it was by far the fastest he ever has swam for the first 300 and maybe he wanted to get so far ahead that he would demoralize the field. He might have been shutting down or just plain died but still won by the largest margin and it was all in that first 300. Phelps split a :56.79 and I believe that is the fastest split ever compared to the 58.6 split by Lochte. Now this is where it gets interesting. Tamas Darnyi swam a 57.60 24 years ago at the 1992 Olympics for his last 100 split and he was 3:16.63 at the 300 mark and swam a time of 4:14.23 and that time is 9 seconds slower than what Lochte did. Another example is Tom Dolan at the 1994 World Championships. He swam a 57.66 for his last 100 split and he was 3:14.86 at the 300 mark and swam at time of 4:12.30 and that is 7 seconds slower than what Lochte did. I remembered Darnyi's swim because he would have out split half of the field in the 400 Free and this was talked about a lot back 20 years ago so this is not that unusual. Lochte is by far the best 300 IM mark swimmer of all time and this includes tech suits. However, he did not get the WR because of that last 100. In 1984, Alex Baumann swam a 58.28 on his last 100 of the 400 IM at the 1984 Olympics in a WR time of 4:17.53 and that is still faster than what Lochte did and that was 28 years ago. The point in this is you can't compare splits because everyone swims this event differently. Because I was interested in this I found that almost half of the 100 free splits in the 400 IM at past World Championships and Olympic Games were faster than 58.6 Interesting- I didn't know this. Thanks for putting this analysis together.

Her splits from Shanghai: 30.12 33.77 35.45 34.71 39.38 40.02 31.82 29.88 Her splits from London: 28.85 33.34 35.34 34.20 38.80 39.22 29.75 28.93

she's dropping time like an age grouper! oh wait :)

Is there a possibility of an adulterated suit advantage? I think the suits are bar coded and inspected in the ready room

I am wondering I saw one swimmer with three bathing caps is it possible they were using these to help their bouyancy. The one cap looked to me as a neoprene cap that I used for training in cold water.

Records are broken all the time, and as time passes "phenom" performances become the norm. How long will this 400 IM record last? I'll bet it doesn't hold up as long as those of Janet Evans and Mary Meagher.