The Fastest Age

Originally posted by osterber Hard question to answer, even scientifically. To best determine the 'fastest age', you should look at the average age of the winners at the US Olympic Trials. Those should at least be the fastest Americans. Or look at the average age of the winners at the Olympics. I agree with knelson on this. I think that a better test would be the age at which various world records were set. Unfortunately, I don't know of any place where that data is readily available. I do know that Popov was in his late 20s when he set the world record in 50m freestyle. For masters swimming, the 19-24 age group can be under-represented with fast swimmers because people that age are often either (a) on a college team and thus not swimming masters, or (b) just graduated from college, and are burnt out and don't want to be swimming. What you see is that bunches of those college swimmers start coming back in their late 20's and early 30's, once they've been away from the sport for a little bit. -Rick It's likely, as you say, that the bottom part of the 19-24 age group is being preempted by NCAA. But for the upper age part of the group, it's harder to weigh. I know that, for me, the years immediately after I got out of college were the easiest for exercise because I didn't have a lot of other things interfering. I was single, living in an apartment about 10 minutes from where I worked, had no wife or kids, didn't have a lot of job responsibilities, and had parents who were still young enough not to need any care. But by the time I turned 25, I had gotten involved in volunteer youth work that took up a lot of my time, and since then, the responsibilities have just kept increasing. There is certainly going to be a point for each swimmer when age-related physical deterioration sets in and hinders performance. But physical deterioration due to responsibilities that interfere with exercise may come into play long before that. And there is every reason to believe that a swimmer's skill level increases throughout his/her life, meaning that a swimmer may be able to continue to improve for awhile in spite of physical deterioration because he/she is swimming more and more efficiently. Bob

Originally posted by osterber Hard question to answer, even scientifically. To best determine the 'fastest age', you should look at the average age of the winners at the US Olympic Trials. Those should at least be the fastest Americans. Or look at the average age of the winners at the Olympics. I agree with knelson on this. I think that a better test would be the age at which various world records were set. Unfortunately, I don't know of any place where that data is readily available. I do know that Popov was in his late 20s when he set the world record in 50m freestyle. For masters swimming, the 19-24 age group can be under-represented with fast swimmers because people that age are often either (a) on a college team and thus not swimming masters, or (b) just graduated from college, and are burnt out and don't want to be swimming. What you see is that bunches of those college swimmers start coming back in their late 20's and early 30's, once they've been away from the sport for a little bit. -Rick It's likely, as you say, that the bottom part of the 19-24 age group is being preempted by NCAA. But for the upper age part of the group, it's harder to weigh. I know that, for me, the years immediately after I got out of college were the easiest for exercise because I didn't have a lot of other things interfering. I was single, living in an apartment about 10 minutes from where I worked, had no wife or kids, didn't have a lot of job responsibilities, and had parents who were still young enough not to need any care. But by the time I turned 25, I had gotten involved in volunteer youth work that took up a lot of my time, and since then, the responsibilities have just kept increasing. There is certainly going to be a point for each swimmer when age-related physical deterioration sets in and hinders performance. But physical deterioration due to responsibilities that interfere with exercise may come into play long before that. And there is every reason to believe that a swimmer's skill level increases throughout his/her life, meaning that a swimmer may be able to continue to improve for awhile in spite of physical deterioration because he/she is swimming more and more efficiently. Bob