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.
i135.photobucket.com/.../OTM100Free.jpgi135.photobucket.com/.../OTM200Free.jpgi135.photobucket.com/.../OTM200Fly.jpgi135.photobucket.com/.../OTW100Free.jpgi135.photobucket.com/.../OTW200Free.jpgi135.photobucket.com/.../OTW200Back.jpg
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I quoted 2-5% based on claims made by Speedo about the LZR & B70 for its Nero...and i stand by it because the comparison Hoff made (thanks that was interesting and validats what several coaches and simmers have told me of how slow the pool was) is apples to oranges...the claims of improvements are based on times in the last generation of suits to this generation.
And if you have not seen, touched or swam in this "rubber" generation of suits I look forward to coming back and chatting with all of us about it after you do.
By the way, in spekaing with a coach this afternoon about this his positon was that swimmers who had exceptional body position saw the least amount of improvement (Phelps) while those who were no doubt excellant before found much larger drops (Weber-Gale).
Now for the next tech debate/controverssy...the new caps claing to reduce drap from an old latex/silicone cap by as much as 5%. Seemed to me the vast majority of the swimmers were wearing them.
Paul - what is the last generation of suits? FS2 or FSPro? If so - I still don't see a 2% improvement. I just compared Stephanie Rice's 400 IM WR (4:31.46) vs. not Hoff's but Yana Klochkova's 2000 WR (4:33.59). That's just a .78% improvement. Yana was surely wearing something old (Arena? Aquablade?). How about Bernard or Phelps vs. Peter Van Den Hoogenbond in the 100 and 200 in 2000? PVDH probably wore a brief. Bernard's WR is just .72% faster - Phelps 1.43% faster. Peirsol vs. Krazelburg in the 100 - 1.17%That's just a few I looked at that HAVE TO span multiple generations of swimsuits.
BTW - Shubert said "2% advantage over any other suit."
The WR progression for men is easily viewed at:
www.usaswimming.org/.../DesktopDefault.aspx
As for the cap - if the cap is 5% faster than previous caps, but the cap is only 5% of the drag, then it should produce a .25% improvement. But we don't know how much drag the cap causes overall - and it surely varies by stroke because of head position. The caps definitely LOOKED fast....:D
I quoted 2-5% based on claims made by Speedo about the LZR & B70 for its Nero...and i stand by it because the comparison Hoff made (thanks that was interesting and validats what several coaches and simmers have told me of how slow the pool was) is apples to oranges...the claims of improvements are based on times in the last generation of suits to this generation.
And if you have not seen, touched or swam in this "rubber" generation of suits I look forward to coming back and chatting with all of us about it after you do.
By the way, in spekaing with a coach this afternoon about this his positon was that swimmers who had exceptional body position saw the least amount of improvement (Phelps) while those who were no doubt excellant before found much larger drops (Weber-Gale).
Now for the next tech debate/controverssy...the new caps claing to reduce drap from an old latex/silicone cap by as much as 5%. Seemed to me the vast majority of the swimmers were wearing them.
Paul - what is the last generation of suits? FS2 or FSPro? If so - I still don't see a 2% improvement. I just compared Stephanie Rice's 400 IM WR (4:31.46) vs. not Hoff's but Yana Klochkova's 2000 WR (4:33.59). That's just a .78% improvement. Yana was surely wearing something old (Arena? Aquablade?). How about Bernard or Phelps vs. Peter Van Den Hoogenbond in the 100 and 200 in 2000? PVDH probably wore a brief. Bernard's WR is just .72% faster - Phelps 1.43% faster. Peirsol vs. Krazelburg in the 100 - 1.17%That's just a few I looked at that HAVE TO span multiple generations of swimsuits.
BTW - Shubert said "2% advantage over any other suit."
The WR progression for men is easily viewed at:
www.usaswimming.org/.../DesktopDefault.aspx
As for the cap - if the cap is 5% faster than previous caps, but the cap is only 5% of the drag, then it should produce a .25% improvement. But we don't know how much drag the cap causes overall - and it surely varies by stroke because of head position. The caps definitely LOOKED fast....:D
