What Will Be the Longest Standing World Record of Suit Age?

I don't think Bob did anything questionable, everything came together & he had that amazing WR leap that stood for years. Suspect records might be FloJo's 100 & 200 M dashes at the 1988 olympics, those records still stand, in all these years, no ones come close to either, even Marion Jones who admitted to doping didn't beat them. Were the rubber suits were better than drugs? No, Beamon's jump is not in question, I was just making the point that we have a situation where we could have a record that lasts for a ridiculously long time a la Beamon's. That jump was something of a problem to the track & field work since it was legit by the rules of the day because no one understand all the implications of jumping at altitude, but it also was clearly an outlier. Later it was marked with an asterisk, but it was still the world record. The women's long jump WR - by a Russian in '88 - is suspect at best.The women's 800 meter record from 1983 is positively a travesty. Flojo's runs are problematic to the T&F world on two counts: They were so far ahead of anything that she had done prior and there is a lot of doubt that the wind reading was made correctly and it was well over the allowable. On the other side, we have Usain Bolt in the men's sprints who is doing Flojo-like things and yet is tested constantly. So, if he is legit, then Flojo might have been a freak of nature as well. (No other way to describe Bolt - he's too fast to properly wrap your brain around.) So... I just hope that this suit-era doesn't become an asterisk-based embarassment for swimming. -LBJ

I don't think Bob did anything questionable, everything came together & he had that amazing WR leap that stood for years. Suspect records might be FloJo's 100 & 200 M dashes at the 1988 olympics, those records still stand, in all these years, no ones come close to either, even Marion Jones who admitted to doping didn't beat them. Were the rubber suits were better than drugs? No, Beamon's jump is not in question, I was just making the point that we have a situation where we could have a record that lasts for a ridiculously long time a la Beamon's. That jump was something of a problem to the track & field work since it was legit by the rules of the day because no one understand all the implications of jumping at altitude, but it also was clearly an outlier. Later it was marked with an asterisk, but it was still the world record. The women's long jump WR - by a Russian in '88 - is suspect at best.The women's 800 meter record from 1983 is positively a travesty. Flojo's runs are problematic to the T&F world on two counts: They were so far ahead of anything that she had done prior and there is a lot of doubt that the wind reading was made correctly and it was well over the allowable. On the other side, we have Usain Bolt in the men's sprints who is doing Flojo-like things and yet is tested constantly. So, if he is legit, then Flojo might have been a freak of nature as well. (No other way to describe Bolt - he's too fast to properly wrap your brain around.) So... I just hope that this suit-era doesn't become an asterisk-based embarassment for swimming. -LBJ