This new thread occurred to me while reading posts comparing Spitz to Phelps, as well as reflecting upon mortality considering heart attacks etc. In swimming we immortalize individuals or teams for various feats or contributions, but do little to preserve a feeling for subsequent generations of enthusiasts about what it was like to train and compete 'back in the day'. Just what day am I talking about? Exactly: there have been many 'days' or more properly 'eras' that can be narrowly characterized by differences in equipment, distances swum and trained, coaching methods or more widely by larger factors: world war, global depression, racial segregation, inequality of the sexes. All of these can contribute to very different experiences than what are common today to the younger swimmer; hence, 'what was it like'. I visualize a thread that continues to be added to as new people read it and remember their own experiences. As well, experience can vary with national origin, not just era. There have already been posts on this topic scattered in various threads, please feel free to copy or quote material from them to here.
Please remember that this is not about how fast a particular swimmer was, but about the conditions that defined competitive swimming of that day.
We also have a priceless resource out there: aging swimmers in their 80's or 90's who may be less likely to read or hear of this thread; why not ask them for some of their memories or impressions and pass them on to us, while we still can?
We ate Tang powder straight from the jar, too...orange was my fave...Had they even invented any color/flavor other than Orange Tang?
If you think about our parents and coaches pushing Jello and Tang on us, they were, in effect, looking for a performance enhancing drug ... on 10 & unders!
Had they even invented any color/flavor other than Orange Tang?
If you think about our parents and coaches pushing Jello and Tang on us, they were, in effect, looking for a performance enhancing drug ... on 10 & unders!
Orange is the only one I remember, so maybe you are right.
I remember "space bars" too. Because, y'know, that's what the astronauts ate.
Just looked them up in Wikipedia, where it is claimed that they were a fave of Ian Thorpe. Performance enhancing!!
In high school swimming, 1990-1991 was the first season that backstroke flip turns were allowed. In NCAA swimming, it was 1991-1992.
I remember being about 15 when I decided that I was not a backstroker and I never got the opportunity to do a 200+ IM back then, so there was no point in my even trying these new-fangled turns. That would put them around 1989.
FTR I have now conceded, but don't practice them enough to do them well.
I swam in high school in the fall of 1988 (and part of the season my first year of college).
2) Polyester suits.
I bought an ugly Speedo Endurance suit off a clearance rack last summer. I had not bought a swimming suit in 20 years, had not heard of Endurance, and had no clue what I was getting. And the suit will. not. die!
:lolup:
Sorry, just had to!
If you sit on the bottom of a shallow pool, the concrete will catch the fabric and make it all bobbly...... if you're looking for a reason to replace the suit.
You may prefer an XtraLife lycra one next time - they don't last nearly as long as the endurance ones (particularly if you use the hot tub) butare much nicer.
I have now gone back to Speedo Endurance, although I'm not 100% convinced on the grab bag one I got last month :blush:
Small thing that I just remembered from the Sixties: at meets, including stateside, there was one year when all the girls would spend down times between events in groups where they were all grooming these 'troll' dolls that were about 4-5 inches tall with long manes of straight hair. These included girls of an age who wouldn't be caught dead with dolls in public at other times.
2) Polyester suits.
I bought an ugly Speedo Endurance suit off a clearance rack last summer. I had not bought a swimming suit in 20 years, had not heard of Endurance, and had no clue what I was getting. And the suit will. not. die!
You might want to try Tyr Durafast suits. They are polyester but don't have the scratchiness quality of some of the other polyester products. They last forever--the stitching in the seams wears out long before the fabric. And they don't have the tendency that Lycra has to become form-fitting and shrink-wrapping, which is either obscene or delightful, depending on the form-fitted and shrink-wrapped. Ask your teammates which category you fall into.
Who else remembers the raw-jello eating thing?
During the '70s when I was an age-group swimmer, it seems like eating powdered jello mix straight from the box was the thing to do at swim meets. I thought it was totally yucky and didn't do it myself, but I was seemingly in a small minority.
I think the idea was to pack your muscles with sugar right before a race. I am pretty sure the thinking now is that flooding yourself with raw sugar, albeit sugar with artificial dye to give it fruit-like colors, just causes a quick spike in insulin followed by a plummet in blood sugar--precisely the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of working as a legal PED, or performance enhancing drug, I think raw Jell-O was actually a PID, or perfomance inhibiting drug. Imagine how fast Mark Spitz might have been!
I meant to also quote Chris here in his comment about Tang. It's funny because I buy Tang today on a semi-regular basis. According to the dishwasher repairman, the citric acid in it makes it a perfect product to clean out the accumulate scale and other crud in the dishwasher.
Perhaps it served a similar role in the digestive tract of elite swimmers and astronauts alike?
Tang: former food, current household solvent
Who else remembers the raw-jello eating thing?
During the '70s when I was an age-group swimmer, it seems like eating powdered jello mix straight from the box was the thing to do at swim meets. I thought it was totally yucky and didn't do it myself, but I was seemingly in a small minority.
I loved the jello eating; it turned your fingers beautiful colors. We would eat a different color with each finger and have rainbow hands!
I also had 2 trolls, a giant sized one and a small regular sized one. We would put them behind our blocks while we raced.
I swam in high school in the fall of 1988 (and part of the season my first year of college).
It's not so much the things I remember, but the things that have surprised me now that I've started swimming again.
...
4) They moved the starting blocks.
My 10-year-old daughter had a meet at my old h.s. The blocks are now at the same end as the diving boards. I swear they used to be at the 3.5" end by the locker rooms.
This one was a big surprise to me as well.... and what a great idea! We used to start in some ridiculously shallow pools. I remember one in Sterling, IL that was so shallow it was seemingly impossibly to avoid knocking ones knees on the bottom. Now I wonder why they didn't always put the starting blocks in the deep end in the first place!
3) Backstroke flip turns.
I am absolutely fascinated by these! I swear we had to stay on our back and spin in place, but a co-worker only a few years younger than I am says he was doing backstroke flip turns in high school. When did they come about? I must know.
I like them too, I hated the old-style turns.
I graduated from college in 1986 and we were still doing the old backstroke flip-turns. I think the modern flip- turns started 1-2 years after that.
I was born in 1930, and swimming and diving gave me some of my happiest times....It was an extraordinary experience to have these human contacts across the boundary between nations separated by cold war.
Frank M.
Frank, this is superb--extremely well-written and overall just a fascinating look at history through the eyes of a swimmer/diver!
USMS has a section devoted to archiving the stories of masters swimmers. Carl House, I think, used to be in charge of this, but I am not sure if he's still doing it, or if not, who else is in charge now. Perhaps Chris S. or another forumite with ties to the USMS staff could tell us.
In any event, I really hope someone who knows about these things can archive your story.
Here's a link to the area where these stories are now being collected:
http://www.usms.org/hist/sto/
PS Good luck at cracking that 1:17 100 backstroke in the 80-84 age group!
