I've been swimming my entire life yet the fastest my 50m freestyle ever got was 28.7 seconds while using a tech suit. Yet I see many Olympians and others that have almost the same muscle mass and proportions and they swim consistent 23's.
How is this so?
...
I would think of anyone who day, made the olympic trials, or an NCAA champ, even in lower division, to be really great. Like a world beyond anything I can imagine.
That's not a bad benchmark I think especially making a time cut like the Olympic trials. Winning a particular event at NCAA is always, like any other race, subject to so many factors. So a time mark seems to me to have a certain reliability a medal may have but might not.
But suppose if you had Michael Phelps, Ryan Lotche, Dana Torres, and Mark Spitz were sitting around and talking?
I'd guess they might view someone who won one olympic silver and one bronze as an "also ran." Or maybe even, "Sure that swimmer had a world record, like 10 years ago, but it was only one. It lasted two months. And what was it in? *** stroke? meh."
I've heard people like Spitz, Gaines, Betsy Mitchell, Rich Saeger, Steve Lundquist and others of the late 70's/80's generation of Olympic medalists talk about such things and never heard them say that kind of thing. They know how incredibly ephemeral a moment it is on the medal stand and how short record times often last. The fact anyone got near one is an accomplishment they recognized.
Don't know about those young kids these days, though. :laugh2:
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I would think of anyone who day, made the olympic trials, or an NCAA champ, even in lower division, to be really great. Like a world beyond anything I can imagine.
That's not a bad benchmark I think especially making a time cut like the Olympic trials. Winning a particular event at NCAA is always, like any other race, subject to so many factors. So a time mark seems to me to have a certain reliability a medal may have but might not.
But suppose if you had Michael Phelps, Ryan Lotche, Dana Torres, and Mark Spitz were sitting around and talking?
I'd guess they might view someone who won one olympic silver and one bronze as an "also ran." Or maybe even, "Sure that swimmer had a world record, like 10 years ago, but it was only one. It lasted two months. And what was it in? *** stroke? meh."
I've heard people like Spitz, Gaines, Betsy Mitchell, Rich Saeger, Steve Lundquist and others of the late 70's/80's generation of Olympic medalists talk about such things and never heard them say that kind of thing. They know how incredibly ephemeral a moment it is on the medal stand and how short record times often last. The fact anyone got near one is an accomplishment they recognized.
Don't know about those young kids these days, though. :laugh2:
