I think it is insulting to say the hard work and achievements of today's athletes is a joke, they can't help the times they are in. When I see a group of Olympic hopefuls at the pool at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, the first thing that comes to mind is hard work and dedication, not "they are only good because they have new technology." Of course, I also think they should swim from 5-6:30 am on Saturday mornings instead of the Masters so I could get more sleep.
For those of us that shuttle kids endlessly around to practices and meets and see the incredible effort they put in, it's not so much of a joke. In an era when swimming is losing out to sports that are flashier, have more gizmos and cool stuff (and that is hugely relevant to kids), insisting on some antiquated set of rules and resistance to inevitable change will do nothing but put swimming further and further behind other more popular sports.
Let's not get carried away. I believe what I said was: If you can find a way to get faster withing the current rules, go for it.
Although one should never underestimate FINA's ability to find inventive interpretations of their rules, the question can be paraphrased as "Should FINA change its rules to allow this new style of blocks?" And what principle should that decision be based on?
Geek,
I could care less if the sport changes stroke rules for turns, underwater kicking, full body suit technology etc..... but when it comes to records, they are established to show accomplished feats given certain rules and standards. If you train harder, longer, smarter .... whatever.... and beat a record you certainly deserve the record.
If you put on a full body suit, fail to touch the wall on a backstroke turn, swim underwater dolphin kick a quarter or more of your race, do a dolphin kick on your pull out and start the race with a leg up via the block itself ....... well..... it just gets to be a bit of a joke after a while.
All this combined with the Roger Clemons/Marion Jones/Tour de France drug era in sports...... I suppose I'm supposed to think of this aspect as a positive change as well?
You wonder why we are old and "crotchety"..... how can you stop from rolling your eyes about much of this crap.
Now having said that..... are Micheal Phelps, Ian Crocker, Lochte, Coughlin etc... faster than most of the best swimmers in the last 25 years without all these changes..... absolutely. They are phenomenal in their respective events. We will never, however, know exactly how much better due to these rule changes. May I point out to you the superimposed video of Jim Mongtomery's WR 100m free with Vandenhoogenband's swim. The actual swimming portion of the race between the walls showed that Peter didn't beat Jim by that much.
John Smith
Geek,
I could care less if the sport changes stroke rules for turns, underwater kicking, full body suit technology etc..... but when it comes to records, they are established to show accomplished feats given certain rules and standards. If you train harder, longer, smarter .... whatever.... and beat a record you certainly deserve the record.
If you put on a full body suit, fail to touch the wall on a backstroke turn, swim underwater dolphin kick a quarter or more of your race, do a dolphin kick on your pull out and start the race with a leg up via the block itself ....... well..... it just gets to be a bit of a joke after a while.
All this combined with the Roger Clemons/Marion Jones/Tour de France drug era in sports...... I suppose I'm supposed to think of this aspect as a positive change as well?
You wonder why we are old and "crotchety"..... how can you stop from rolling your eyes about much of this crap.
Now having said that..... are Micheal Phelps, Ian Crocker, Lochte, Coughlin etc... faster than most of the best swimmers in the last 25 years without all these changes..... absolutely. They are phenomenal in their respective events. We will never, however, know exactly how much better due to these rule changes. May I point out to you the superimposed video of Jim Mongtomery's WR 100m free with Vandenhoogenband's swim. The actual swimming portion of the race between the walls showed that Peter didn't beat Jim by that much.
John Smith
Yes, I do wonder that. Of course, I also wonder that given this level of outrage over sports related issues, how angry must you be over the seemingly endless list of messes our great country has found itself in. My point being, new starting blocks should really be the least of any Americans worries right now.
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.
SCYfreestyler.....
I thought this was a swimming forum for discussions of items related to swimming..... not necessarily world events.
Geek,
You are missing the point and the direction of my disgust. I never said that we should punish the current swimmers. I disagree with the US swimming's approval of the extent of rule changes compared to their effects on record keeping the laset 15 years. One affects the other tremendously and in the last 15 years it appears there is little regard or respect for past performances when setting these rule changes other than to generate a degree of false improvement level in the sport. This is not to say that there are no advancements in the sport and that kids are not training their butts off.... they are !! (incidently, my 12 year old son is kickin' butt here in Colorado. Just went 5:00 for a 500) I certainly feel swimming has faster performances even if you net all these items out.... but not as by as much as you would like to think.
I don't see any point in record keeping when the rules change so significantly. You say I want to penalize the new generation. Not at all. You, however, seem to want to penalize the former established performers. You say you respect the old guard, but you'd rather see a so called "improvement" in the sport negate what they have accomplished in the record books.
Actually, I would fully support these type of rule and technology changes if we decided to get rid of American and World Record keeping altogether. But it's too misleading to compare performances now to then and wipe older respected names off the books year after year when the changes to the sport are merely to make it easier to go faster, not slower.
Lindsay,
Whats wrong with noting in the record books that post 1970s records are performed with goggles. Is that REALLY a punishment to the record holders in the 1970s? Geek thinks an asterisk is a punishment.
John Smith
John, my approach to the records issue would be to publish the records in a timeline format that shows when the records were set along with the changes in rules and facilities that occurred along the way. I suspect that the resistance to simple asterisks is that it has also been suggested that drug-tainted records get an asterisk. In the day of the web there is no impedance to providing a richer presentation of the records than a simple table.
I wish fina rules would allow
starting blocks or toes over the edge for backstroke starts
or better yet, let us dive in forward then roll over underwater.
Ande -
I think, with time, these may happen. (Remember the period when backstrokers could stand up on the gutter and effectively dive backwards? I also remember breaking many a finger due to having to touch first, especially with the old slatted touchpads!)
