EAMON Sullivan breaks 50 LCM FREE WR again in 21.28

some of the arguments here are really bad, on both sides of the issue. i don't think it's fair to gary to assume that he is coming up with excuses for his future loss. he's a guy who's won the 50 free twice in a row, and is by his own admission not as his peak anymore. if he loses he has nothing to be ashamed about, and i doubt he feels any differently. that said, it is a very interesting time in sprinting. we're in a period where some form of big change is happening, and the reason everyone is freaking out is because no one knows why. It seems there are three explanations: 1) The new suit Yes the suit is probably slightly faster than the old models. But some of the arguments being floated out there, such as it makes you more buoyant, make no sense to anyone with any degree of knowledge of physics. You need a lot thicker of a material for any degree of noticeable change to a 180lb man. Losing the seams probably lowers drag a noticeable amount, but how much per 100? Hard to tell, but I doubt suits help that much. Case in point: Cielo's performance last night in an older nike? suit. Also, remember Phelps 200 fly record at the Missouri Grand Prix last year. This was done unshaved, untapered, goatee. He loses 1.5 s off a 200 at worlds soon after with an FSPRO. The taper had to be worth AT LEAST 1s of that 1.5. So maybe the FS Pro, which is composed of the same material as the LZR, could be good for .5s/200, or a tenth per 50. That doesn't explain a drop for sullivan, of what, .75 off a 50 in 7 months? 2) Improved technique The less-is-more approach to sprint training has been working well for auburn and the race club for a while. however, while the members of these clubs, and others employing this type of training strategy have improved their times, they have come at a gradual, steady pace in improvement (schoeman, cielo). despite these improvements in training, neither nystrand, schoeman, or cielo had been able to take down popov's record in numerous efforts. so we are to believe that new stroke technique is to account for a suffden, five-tenth drop in the wr? Usually marks are broken gradually, this is not the case here. The only time we have recently seen large drops in the WR was due to the introduction of SDK's. Despite Jmiller's noted technique changes in sullivan's stroke, none of these changes seems to be capable of the magnitude of the changes we are talking about here. remember, popov and hall trained very differently, and had very different strokes , yet at their peak only a tenth of a second separated their best efforts. And the best efforts of the other best sprinters of the world were within a tenth of their times. Sorry, but an better EDF does not explain a sudden drop of 5 tenths. maybe in a 200, but a 50? I suppose it is possible, but very unlikely at this level. Which leads us to the final conclusion... 3) Drugs Everyone's talked about it enough so I won't much more. But it would be nice not to hear comments like "sullivan can't be on drugs, he's a shrimp compared to alain"..... etc. different drugs do different things to different body types, especially when those bodies are subjected to different training routines. money has been coming into this sport, and obviously SOMEONE is going to try to cheat to make it into that money at some point. it's inevitable. and when that person does come to this sport, i hope the members of the swimming community are so naive, or discount the intelligence of chemists to assume that the first swimmer who tries this is going to look like barry bonds. just look at the drugged-up half of the tour de france, or the majority of pitchers who were found out to be using PED's. you can't go by body type, it's way more advanced than the days of the east germans now. so we have three explanations. #1 we can pretty much dismiss out of hand. i think to the open-minded members of the forum, #2 and #3 are pretty much equally plausible. it's pretty funny to see so many posts where people are adamant that it's 1,2, or 3. there's no way we can know right now, unless if you actually were eamon or alain. there's too much going on in the sport right now, too many fast times. we just have to watch the dust settle over the next year after olympics. it should be pretty plain that we won't know for several years what 2008 was all about. gary wants eamon to tell him what he is doing differently. of course he isn't going to get an answer either way. if he's doped, of course he won't admit it. if it's technique, why give away a secret that gives you a .25-.5 advantage over the rest of the field? in case there are new designer drugs out there currently, i'm sure tests for them will be developed over the next several years, and some cheaters will get caught, as has always been the case. the only way we can go on is to freeze blood/urine samples for years, testing for new drugs as they are found, and view amazing results as we have seen over the last week with a sense of both wonder and suspicion, knowing that clean athletes' performances will stand and cheaters' will not. i don't see how we have any other choice.

some of the arguments here are really bad, on both sides of the issue. i don't think it's fair to gary to assume that he is coming up with excuses for his future loss. he's a guy who's won the 50 free twice in a row, and is by his own admission not as his peak anymore. if he loses he has nothing to be ashamed about, and i doubt he feels any differently. that said, it is a very interesting time in sprinting. we're in a period where some form of big change is happening, and the reason everyone is freaking out is because no one knows why. It seems there are three explanations: 1) The new suit Yes the suit is probably slightly faster than the old models. But some of the arguments being floated out there, such as it makes you more buoyant, make no sense to anyone with any degree of knowledge of physics. You need a lot thicker of a material for any degree of noticeable change to a 180lb man. Losing the seams probably lowers drag a noticeable amount, but how much per 100? Hard to tell, but I doubt suits help that much. Case in point: Cielo's performance last night in an older nike? suit. Also, remember Phelps 200 fly record at the Missouri Grand Prix last year. This was done unshaved, untapered, goatee. He loses 1.5 s off a 200 at worlds soon after with an FSPRO. The taper had to be worth AT LEAST 1s of that 1.5. So maybe the FS Pro, which is composed of the same material as the LZR, could be good for .5s/200, or a tenth per 50. That doesn't explain a drop for sullivan, of what, .75 off a 50 in 7 months? 2) Improved technique The less-is-more approach to sprint training has been working well for auburn and the race club for a while. however, while the members of these clubs, and others employing this type of training strategy have improved their times, they have come at a gradual, steady pace in improvement (schoeman, cielo). despite these improvements in training, neither nystrand, schoeman, or cielo had been able to take down popov's record in numerous efforts. so we are to believe that new stroke technique is to account for a suffden, five-tenth drop in the wr? Usually marks are broken gradually, this is not the case here. The only time we have recently seen large drops in the WR was due to the introduction of SDK's. Despite Jmiller's noted technique changes in sullivan's stroke, none of these changes seems to be capable of the magnitude of the changes we are talking about here. remember, popov and hall trained very differently, and had very different strokes , yet at their peak only a tenth of a second separated their best efforts. And the best efforts of the other best sprinters of the world were within a tenth of their times. Sorry, but an better EDF does not explain a sudden drop of 5 tenths. maybe in a 200, but a 50? I suppose it is possible, but very unlikely at this level. Which leads us to the final conclusion... 3) Drugs Everyone's talked about it enough so I won't much more. But it would be nice not to hear comments like "sullivan can't be on drugs, he's a shrimp compared to alain"..... etc. different drugs do different things to different body types, especially when those bodies are subjected to different training routines. money has been coming into this sport, and obviously SOMEONE is going to try to cheat to make it into that money at some point. it's inevitable. and when that person does come to this sport, i hope the members of the swimming community are so naive, or discount the intelligence of chemists to assume that the first swimmer who tries this is going to look like barry bonds. just look at the drugged-up half of the tour de france, or the majority of pitchers who were found out to be using PED's. you can't go by body type, it's way more advanced than the days of the east germans now. so we have three explanations. #1 we can pretty much dismiss out of hand. i think to the open-minded members of the forum, #2 and #3 are pretty much equally plausible. it's pretty funny to see so many posts where people are adamant that it's 1,2, or 3. there's no way we can know right now, unless if you actually were eamon or alain. there's too much going on in the sport right now, too many fast times. we just have to watch the dust settle over the next year after olympics. it should be pretty plain that we won't know for several years what 2008 was all about. gary wants eamon to tell him what he is doing differently. of course he isn't going to get an answer either way. if he's doped, of course he won't admit it. if it's technique, why give away a secret that gives you a .25-.5 advantage over the rest of the field? in case there are new designer drugs out there currently, i'm sure tests for them will be developed over the next several years, and some cheaters will get caught, as has always been the case. the only way we can go on is to freeze blood/urine samples for years, testing for new drugs as they are found, and view amazing results as we have seen over the last week with a sense of both wonder and suspicion, knowing that clean athletes' performances will stand and cheaters' will not. i don't see how we have any other choice.