sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../index.html
From the man whose WR has been broken four times in the last two months.....
I like his attitude. He could never be a USMS swimmer. Too much whining here about everything.
Note that we are now over 40 WRs for this year, and we haven't had US Olympic trials or the Olympics yet. Also note that the 1976 Olympics were where lycra suits were introduced. I think some people have alleged that there was some doping going on at those games as well...
Of course, the number of world records set is just a convenient indicator of the value of interest which is drops in time. If you drop the record ten times each time by 0.01 it is still 10 world records while if you drop it by 0.5 in one go it is only 1 world record. What you really want to see is the progression of times over the years.
Is that total? Not just LCM? Because, there are 20 listed in the current LCM records for this year from Hoffam's post. If you add the SCM records (34) from 2000 there were 67 records set that year and 52 (28 SCM) from 1999.
I agree that "drops in time" is interesting, and breaks out this analysis to a finer granularity. Like, with the LCM records posted for this year, we see a glut of them (so far) in the 50/100 free and backstroke events. Given that, I think Ian's post brings up an important factor that's being buried by the great suit debate and hype machine -- sprinters are being trained differently.
Note that we are now over 40 WRs for this year, and we haven't had US Olympic trials or the Olympics yet. Also note that the 1976 Olympics were where lycra suits were introduced. I think some people have alleged that there was some doping going on at those games as well...
Of course, the number of world records set is just a convenient indicator of the value of interest which is drops in time. If you drop the record ten times each time by 0.01 it is still 10 world records while if you drop it by 0.5 in one go it is only 1 world record. What you really want to see is the progression of times over the years.
Is that total? Not just LCM? Because, there are 20 listed in the current LCM records for this year from Hoffam's post. If you add the SCM records (34) from 2000 there were 67 records set that year and 52 (28 SCM) from 1999.
I agree that "drops in time" is interesting, and breaks out this analysis to a finer granularity. Like, with the LCM records posted for this year, we see a glut of them (so far) in the 50/100 free and backstroke events. Given that, I think Ian's post brings up an important factor that's being buried by the great suit debate and hype machine -- sprinters are being trained differently.
