I picked "supersuits" because that is what Mr. Freeze called his suit in the movie The Incredibles.....:D
Rather than add this to one of the Dara Torres threads (!), I decided to post here some analysis I did of several races at Olympic Trials. At least one person here asserts the super suits are worth 2-5% of improvement. I don't believe there is any data to show that - regardless of what swimmers said about their experience in the suits. Note that I do not doubt the suits are faster - I just don't believe they alone can produce a 2-5% improvement in performance.
I looked at six events at OTs: men's 100 free, 200 free, and 200 fly; women's 100 free, 200 free, and 200 back. The swimmers in these races were likely to wear a bodysuit. We all saw that Phelps and several others wore legskins in their IM, back, and breaststroke races.
For these races I tracked the swims of all swimmers that qualified for semi-finals because they had at least two swims at OTs. I picked races shorter than 400s because 400s didn't have semis. I assume the swimmers that make it to semis are "elite" swimmers. They should have easily attained trials cuts and there are reasonable odds they didn't have to taper to get their cuts. These swimmers are likely to be more experienced and less likely to have a shockingly good swim coming from nowhere. I picked their best swim (prelims, semis, and finals), compared to their qualifying time, and calculated the % improvement (or not) for each swimmer, then the field.
Of course I assume all of these swimmers wore a LZR, Tracer, or B70. I watched every OT finals and I only remember one swimmer in a FS-Pro.
What I found:
The average drop in time was:
Men's 100 free: 1.0%
Men's 200 free: 0.97%
Men's 200 fly: 0.90%
Women's 100 free: 0.21%
Women's 200 free: 0.53%
Women's 200 back: 1.51%
The best % improvement in time was Morgan Scroggy: -3.62% in 200 back.
The worst % performance was Amanda Weir: +2.30% in 100 free.
The best male % improvement was Scott Robison: -3.43% in 200 free
The worst male % performance was Eddie Erazo: +1.46% in 200 fly
78% of these swimmers swam at least one time faster than their qualifying time.
21% of these swimmer swam slower than their qualifying time.
1 swimmer's best time (Klete Keller) was exactly his qualifying time (200 free).
15% of the swimmers improved > 2% in one of these events. These swims were:
Alex Righi -100 free, 2.38%
Scot Robison - 200 free, 3.43% (came out of heat 3)
Larsen Jensen - 200 free, 2.57%
Danny Beal - 200 free, 2.11%
Ricky Berens - 200 free, 2.00%
Andrew Callahan - 200 fly, 2.82%
Curtis Dauw - 200 fly, 2.74%
Gil Stovall - 200 fly, 2.33%
Matt Patton - 200 fly, 2.10%
Morgan Scroggy - 200 back, 3.62%
Elizabeth Beisel - 200 back, 3.06%
Bonnie Brandon - 200 back, 2.58%
Erica Meissner - 200 back, 2.44%
Caitlin Iverson - 200 back, 2.10%
I didn't compare to the 2004 Olympic Trials because that would take more work and I don't know if the data is readily available. We do know that the 2004 trials were swum outdoors in a shallower pool. No LZRs. 6 WRs vs. 9 WRs in 2008. The USA-S site says: "According to USA Swimming statistics, almost half the swimmers competing at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials – or 44 percent – swam lifetime bests at this meet. That number breaks down to 39 percent of women swimming lifetime bests, and 49 percent of men swimming lifetime bests throughout the course of the meet." I expect the elite swimmers to perform better than the field as a whole - mainly because they didn't have to scramble to make their cuts.
You guys/gals can form your own opinions. My guess is that these improvements are in the general range of typical USA OT swims. The 2008 Trials weren't incredibly fast compared to past trials. The big stars (Phelps, Coughlin, Hoff, Lochte) generally didn't improve much from their best times - probably because they didn't taper fully for trials.
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On Qualifying times ... many swimmers seeded entries were swum in a LZR earlier this year. So in many instances you're not comparing Pre-"supersuit" times. It might be better to compare with their best times through last year.
I considered this. But for just these six events - there are 96 swimmers (some are duplicated). I would have to go to the USA-S times database and I just don't have time to do that right now. I do know that most of the QTs are lifetime bests, swum some time ago. Phelps and Coughlin's times are not that recent (except her 200IM which I didn't look at). I should probably pick times in 2007 or earlier to be sure someone wasn't wearing a supersuit.
For Sam Perry - I know you didn't like my answer to another post of yours. Sorry about that - but as far as I'm concerned there is no published scientific proof that these suits are 2% (or more) faster. Speedo (or Mark Shubert) claims they are. They tout their research with NASA. All the WRs this year are evidence of improvement - but the impact of the suit(s) is not isolated. It is mixed in with tapers and training timed to peak for Australian, French, etc. Olympic trials. I haven't looked at the recent WRs to see how much of an improvement they were. Except for the explosion of WRs in men's 50 free I don't think they were 2% improvements. Speedo has zero motivation to tone down their marketing. They will continue to tout the WRs in the LZR. They will conveniently ignore that they have 80% market share so it is reasonable to expect that 80% of the WRs might be set by swimmers wearing Speedo.
I have no problem BTW with Speedo per se. I wear Speedo to race, my favorite goggles are Speedo, and I have a Speedo backback. But they are laughing all the way to the bank with the publicity the media bestowed on them for free because of the LZR hype. I agree with Paul Smith that Mark Schubert probably abused his USOC position by so strongly recommending Speedo when he is also paid by Speedo.
On Qualifying times ... many swimmers seeded entries were swum in a LZR earlier this year. So in many instances you're not comparing Pre-"supersuit" times. It might be better to compare with their best times through last year.
I considered this. But for just these six events - there are 96 swimmers (some are duplicated). I would have to go to the USA-S times database and I just don't have time to do that right now. I do know that most of the QTs are lifetime bests, swum some time ago. Phelps and Coughlin's times are not that recent (except her 200IM which I didn't look at). I should probably pick times in 2007 or earlier to be sure someone wasn't wearing a supersuit.
For Sam Perry - I know you didn't like my answer to another post of yours. Sorry about that - but as far as I'm concerned there is no published scientific proof that these suits are 2% (or more) faster. Speedo (or Mark Shubert) claims they are. They tout their research with NASA. All the WRs this year are evidence of improvement - but the impact of the suit(s) is not isolated. It is mixed in with tapers and training timed to peak for Australian, French, etc. Olympic trials. I haven't looked at the recent WRs to see how much of an improvement they were. Except for the explosion of WRs in men's 50 free I don't think they were 2% improvements. Speedo has zero motivation to tone down their marketing. They will continue to tout the WRs in the LZR. They will conveniently ignore that they have 80% market share so it is reasonable to expect that 80% of the WRs might be set by swimmers wearing Speedo.
I have no problem BTW with Speedo per se. I wear Speedo to race, my favorite goggles are Speedo, and I have a Speedo backback. But they are laughing all the way to the bank with the publicity the media bestowed on them for free because of the LZR hype. I agree with Paul Smith that Mark Schubert probably abused his USOC position by so strongly recommending Speedo when he is also paid by Speedo.
