Here are the Women:
Here are some of the big drops from 2007 to this year in terms of time for medal winners:
200 Free Women: Pellegrini 1:56.4 to 1:54.8 // Pang and Isakovic 1:58 to 1:55
400 / 800 Free: Adlington 4:09 / 8:25 to 4:02 and 8:14
100 ***: Tarnee White 1:08.3 to 1:06.0
200 ***: Soni 2:23.6 to 2:20.2
100 Fly: Magnusen 58.6 to 57.0
200 Fly: Liu 2:09.4 to 2:04. 1
200 / 400 IM: Rice 2:11.4 and 4:37 to 2:08 and 4:29
Must be the suits ...
erik
is this a list of
things that make you go hmmm
Here are the Women:
Here are some of the big drops from 2007 to this year in terms of time for medal winners:
200 Free Women: Pellegrini 1:56.4 to 1:54.8 // Pang and Isakovic 1:58 to 1:55
400 / 800 Free: Adlington 4:09 / 8:25 to 4:02 and 8:14
100 ***: Tarnee White 1:08.3 to 1:06.0
200 ***: Soni 2:23.6 to 2:20.2
100 Fly: Magnusen 58.6 to 57.0
200 Fly: Liu 2:09.4 to 2:04. 1
200 / 400 IM: Rice 2:11.4 and 4:37 to 2:08 and 4:29
Must be the suits ...
Well Soni and Magnuson are wearing the same suits as they wore in Trials....
The Aussies had trials this spring....
Some of our girls have swum badly
I don't think those time drops prove anything.
I also have the impression that the improvements this year are more than in past years, but it would require some more statistical analysis. The year to year time drops of individuals do not mean much to me as swimmers change coaches, techniques, training, goals, etc. and of course they increase in both age and exprience. Obviously the change in the suit is a candidate, but does it really contribute that much, and can it be shown? (Or could part of it be due to a slight change in the pool.)
I will say my impression of the Chinese swimmers (who as a nation may have the biggest improvement) did not lead me to wondering if they had some secret herb sauce. It could well be the result of identifying the highest potential individuals out of a vast population and training them at the highest level.
Statistics that might be informative: Using velocity as the measure, how much improvement was there for the winning time and how much for the average of the top 8 and 16 swimmers? Compute that across the different strokes, and the different distances (I would imagine that reduced drag would be most important for the longer distances). Then look at individuals and determine how many improved & by how much, and how many failed to improve (there were many cases of that!).
I'd also want to look at those who first wore the laser suits at the Olympics (you know, the ones that had the tape over the Speedo logo). Did they improve better/worse than others? (I suspect there are comparative swims between the two suits by some swimmers, but I'm not aware of them.)
Then once you have those numbers, how do these numbers compare to prior Olympics? It would also be fascinating to do a similar kind of study for bicycling (another technical sport) and track (probably a lot less influenced by technology).
