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 ....
We had many arguments as to the tougher sport. I would bring up the limited breathing aspect, they would bring up the fact that I could float when done with my event, and not fall to the ground like a cut puppet.
float at the end of a race??? I'm not sure how that argument even fits - when you say it out loud it sounds so ridiculous. So when they finish a sprint or a 440 they don't stop, they run forever, or somehow floating allows us to immediately recover??
Both running and swimming are a lot about learning to pace your race properly - but I still see swimming in a medium that is more dense, and using a less powerful set of muscles (maybe slightly so) is harder if you have a comparible distance/workout/time.
We had many arguments as to the tougher sport. I would bring up the limited breathing aspect, they would bring up the fact that I could float when done with my event, and not fall to the ground like a cut puppet.
float at the end of a race??? I'm not sure how that argument even fits - when you say it out loud it sounds so ridiculous. So when they finish a sprint or a 440 they don't stop, they run forever, or somehow floating allows us to immediately recover??
Both running and swimming are a lot about learning to pace your race properly - but I still see swimming in a medium that is more dense, and using a less powerful set of muscles (maybe slightly so) is harder if you have a comparible distance/workout/time.
