not surprising at all
Lochte one of the best SDKers in the world
( he gets to SDK 8 lenths)
plus he gets to rollover and flip each turn, while Phelps did open turns
If Phelps was able to flip on the fly turns it would be a way different story
ande
en.wikipedia.org/.../United_States_records_in_swimming
Go down to the SCY records and note that Lochte's 200 Back is 2 seconds faster then Phelp's 200 Fly record.
The reason may be silly,but they determined in their infinite wisdom that swimming more than 15M underwater caused a risk of passing out.This would happen back when it was legal to swim breaststroke underwater so there is some rational to it,but 15M is arbitrary.
I've just always been told that only freestyle was faster than fly.
This is true. But short course backstroke isn't backstroke at all. It's 15M of dolphin kicking 5 yards of swimming and a flip turn. IMHO, shouldn't be called backstroke anymore.
I never understood while the swimming rules makers gave the same underwater limit for SC and LC swimming.
