If they go back to true regular suits and Jammers, we may never see the times of the last 2 years again - well at least not until they change the rules again.... I went back to look at the World Rankings for 10th Place and 25th place for the last 7 Olympic years. The Olympic years have always been the fastest years (except of course for 2009 - thanks to you know what). I used the 10th and 25th spot to avoid the "freak" factor and good a good average rate of improvement. Also - I used Freestyle to avoid the impact of rule changes and the emergence of dlphin kicks.
1984 50.36 50.93
1988 50.13 50.54
1992 49.83 50.43
1996 49.74 50.27
2000 49.15 49.67
2004 49.08 49.45
2008 47.83 48.5
2009 47.77 48.27
A couple of things jump out:
- rate of progress has slowed down to maybe 1 to 2 tenth per Olympic cycle
- Big drop in 2000 with arrival of Fastskin suits - about half a second ! and of course a full second and more in 2008.
- In a 1996 suit, I would guess the current times to be just a little slower than the 2000 times.
They are going to have trials next year for the 2011 Worlds - I am guessing a 49.7 or 49.8 will make the US team in the 100 Free ....
to reply to the "what about us?" portion:
I for one, have swum personal best times in a speedo and fs1 jammers in the last 13 months and have no reason to believe that I will have any trouble continuing to do the same should these FINA rules affect USMS.
I would think that a good portion of masters swimmers will be just fine. Remember, the percentage of USMS membership that does meets, and that do nationals, is small. (Jim Matysek had percentages on these forums a while back, and i think it was somewhere about 15% total participants did meets.)
There are plenty of these participants who have NOT been wearing any of the new suits and/or have not worn anything more than a normal brief/jammer (for men) or tank (for women). I bet these same people will be doing just fine, where the folks who've been wearing full body LZRs, b70s, Jakeds, etc., will be struggling to get to where they were in 2009.
to reply to the "what about us?" portion:
I for one, have swum personal best times in a speedo and fs1 jammers in the last 13 months and have no reason to believe that I will have any trouble continuing to do the same should these FINA rules affect USMS.
I would think that a good portion of masters swimmers will be just fine. Remember, the percentage of USMS membership that does meets, and that do nationals, is small. (Jim Matysek had percentages on these forums a while back, and i think it was somewhere about 15% total participants did meets.)
There are plenty of these participants who have NOT been wearing any of the new suits and/or have not worn anything more than a normal brief/jammer (for men) or tank (for women). I bet these same people will be doing just fine, where the folks who've been wearing full body LZRs, b70s, Jakeds, etc., will be struggling to get to where they were in 2009.
