... if more swimmers participated in masters in that age group, I bet the drop off percentages would be steeper.
If more fast swimmers participated in every age group, all the times would be faster. I know guys from my HS swim team, now in their 50s, who could post a Top Ten time every splash. But they don't compete. One HS guy, now in his 40s, swam SCY nats in 2012 & won all the fly events. Then back to the shadows. I think there are a lot of fast people out there, in every age group, who don't compete.
But I don't think it matters. This method arbitrarily picks the 10th place time nationally among swimmers who do compete. These are pretty healthy people. But you could pick 15th or 30th, or almost any other number, and probably get almost the same curves. (Numbers #1 & #2 probably wouldn't work, because the freak-of-nature factor would put them off the curve.)
That said, there are plenty of problems. Two are, (1) We're comparing times across many decades, and the younger age groups have presumably been exposed to more modern training methods and presumably better coaching. So is this really an apples-to-apples comparison? (2) The curves for men & women diverge in higher age groups, so they really shouldn't be combined. Hey, it's a game! :)
... if more swimmers participated in masters in that age group, I bet the drop off percentages would be steeper.
If more fast swimmers participated in every age group, all the times would be faster. I know guys from my HS swim team, now in their 50s, who could post a Top Ten time every splash. But they don't compete. One HS guy, now in his 40s, swam SCY nats in 2012 & won all the fly events. Then back to the shadows. I think there are a lot of fast people out there, in every age group, who don't compete.
But I don't think it matters. This method arbitrarily picks the 10th place time nationally among swimmers who do compete. These are pretty healthy people. But you could pick 15th or 30th, or almost any other number, and probably get almost the same curves. (Numbers #1 & #2 probably wouldn't work, because the freak-of-nature factor would put them off the curve.)
That said, there are plenty of problems. Two are, (1) We're comparing times across many decades, and the younger age groups have presumably been exposed to more modern training methods and presumably better coaching. So is this really an apples-to-apples comparison? (2) The curves for men & women diverge in higher age groups, so they really shouldn't be combined. Hey, it's a game! :)
