Yes - one more time it's about the suit:
Here is a comparison to 2004 and what it took to make top 16 (top 8 for the 400) over the first 7 events:
2004 listed first then 2008 then the approx. % drop
400 IM - 4:24.8 to 4:21.0 1.5%
100 Fly - 1:01.29 to 59.97 2%
400 Free - 3:55.0 to 3:51.4 1.6%
400 IM - 4:49.57 to 4:43.2 2.3%
100 Br - 1:04.0 to 1:02.36 2.5%
100 Bk - 1:04.12 to 1:02.31 2.6%
200 Free - 1:51.1 to 1:48.76 2.2%
Ok - to be fair, people are getting faster, but I would guess at least a 1.5% drop across the board for the suit -- that is net time !
Parents
Former Member
The first six months of 2004 prior to trials only one WR was broken. This year over the same period prior to the U.S. trials 20 WR's have been broken. 19 of those by swimmers wearing a LZR. Why such a massive discrepancy? It's not just the world record breakers it is across the board improvements beyond anything seen in the last three decades. The camp that chooses to pitch the "other variables" argument (e.g. better training, nutrition, etc.) cannot articulate specifically why those variables would lead to such abberant stats now and not before. So they throw out that speed bump in the knowledge that one can't disprove a negative. Fine it's a theory. But it's has much more support than anything else. There has been extensive study done by Whitten/Lord analyzing the data that came up with 1.9-2.2% improvement on aggregate.
The first six months of 2004 prior to trials only one WR was broken. This year over the same period prior to the U.S. trials 20 WR's have been broken. 19 of those by swimmers wearing a LZR. Why such a massive discrepancy? It's not just the world record breakers it is across the board improvements beyond anything seen in the last three decades. The camp that chooses to pitch the "other variables" argument (e.g. better training, nutrition, etc.) cannot articulate specifically why those variables would lead to such abberant stats now and not before. So they throw out that speed bump in the knowledge that one can't disprove a negative. Fine it's a theory. But it's has much more support than anything else. There has been extensive study done by Whitten/Lord analyzing the data that came up with 1.9-2.2% improvement on aggregate.
