I'm not going to get too worked up over starting blocks, I just think that it would be nice if the discussion could move past the "any change is bad" versus "all change is good" stage to ask the question about what makes a change good or bad. Shark appears to think that any change that results in lowered times is good. If it were that simple we would allow fins, dolphin kicking and flip turns in breaststroke, etc. On the other end of the spectrum do we want to swim without goggles in order to have exact comparisons with swimmers from the early 1900s?
What are the criteria that justify change? That seems to me to be the interesting question.
I'm not going to get too worked up over starting blocks, I just think that it would be nice if the discussion could move past the "any change is bad" versus "all change is good" stage to ask the question about what makes a change good or bad. Shark appears to think that any change that results in lowered times is good. If it were that simple we would allow fins, dolphin kicking and flip turns in breaststroke, etc. On the other end of the spectrum do we want to swim without goggles in order to have exact comparisons with swimmers from the early 1900s?
What are the criteria that justify change? That seems to me to be the interesting question.
