The two people I personally know who care most about the FINA suit change rulings are Leslie The Fortress Livingston. For all I know, you may well care about this even more than we do, but I don't know you, or if I do, you have not made clear your miseries about the suit changes.
In any event, I have been arguing to Leslie that I think the new rules will have a much greater effect on men than women, who get to continue to wear what is basically pretty dab nab near to an original textile tech suit (whereas we are back to the old jammer or briefs of the Mark Spitz era.)
Now that data from this year and last year has begun filtering in, I stand by this, but with less assurance than I once did.
In any event, here -- gleaned from the event rankings part of USMS --are the results from the 800 LCM free in my age group and Leslie's former age group from last summer.
Both include worlds and nationals times. The results are eye-opening. This year's winning time would have placed 10th last year in the men.
This year's winning time for women would have placed 3rd last year for women.
I know this is not even close to an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does suggest that our little flowers, once again, are proving to be the chief beneficiaries of about just every possible advantage that exists in the 21st Century!
*#* *Name Age Time* Club *Meet
*1* *Wood, Larry W 56 *10:16.54* TXLA *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*2* *Guadagni, Peter M 55 *10:22.64* WCM *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*3* *Martin, Jack R 59 *10:25.41* 1776 *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*4* *Wasserman, Neil R 55 *10:41.26* O*H* *Cleveland State University LCM
*5* *Hale, Dave 55 *10:52.61* SRM *Pacific Masters Long Course Championships
*6* *Wright, Robert E 56 *10:55.70* DOC *34th Lakeside Masters Long Course Invitational
*7* *Thompson, Frank L 59 *11:04.24* MICH *34th Lakeside Masters Long Course Invitational
*8* *Penn, William J 59 *11:06.07* PNA *2010 Northwest Zone LCM
*9* *Ditolla, Robert J 56 *11:08.65* ARIZ *2010 AZ Masters LCM State Championship
*10* *Leonard, Dan P 56 *11:10.48* SCAQ *FAST Masters LCM Regional and Zone Championships
*#* *Name Age Time* Club *Meet
*1* *Mann, Michael T 55 *9:00.09* CMS *Conejo Simi Aquatics LCM Regional and Zone Champs
*2* *Townsend, R Scott 56 *9:42.16* LVM *Conejo Simi Aquatics LCM Regional and Zone Champs
*3* *Gandee, Brad 55 *9:57.82* GMUP *2009 USMS National Long Course Championships
*4* *Wood, Larry W 55 *10:00.88* TXLA *South Central Zone Long Course Championships
*5* *Clemmons, Jim 59 *10:02.32* MAM *2009 Pacific Masters Long Course Swimming Championships
*6* *Bell, Alan 59 *10:03.20* PNA *Gil Young Memorial LCM Meet/Northwest Zone Long Course Meters Meet
*7* *Dodson, Phil L 56 *10:04.87* IM *2009 USMS National Long Course Championships
*8* *Martin, Jack R 58 *10:11.61* 1776 *2009 USMS National Long Course Championships
*9* *Penn, William J 58 *10:16.08* PNA *Gil Young Memorial LCM Meet/Northwest Zone Long Course Meters Meet
*10* *Nunnelly, John N 56 *10:18.04* NEM *Bay State Games
#* *Name Age Time* Club *Meet
*1* *Krattli, Caroline 48 *10:15.24* SDSM *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*2* *Welting, Laureen K 45 *10:17.33* TOC *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*3* *Dantzler, Amy L 46 *10:21.02* WH2O *FAST Masters LCM Regional and Zone Championships
*4* *Bennett, Ellen K 47 *10:27.32* SYSM *Bumpy Jones International Classic & Dixie Zone LCM Championships
*5* *Matherne, Susan K 48 *10:30.59* RICE *FCST Luck of the Draw
*6* *Parker Palace, Kelly 49 *10:31.27* UNAT *2010 New England LMSC LCM Championships
*7* *Shuck, Susie 45 *10:32.32* ISF *34th Lakeside Masters Long Course Invitational
*8* *Ramnath, Fernette P 45 *10:34.02* SYSM *USMS 2010 Summer National Championships
*9* *Milanese, Barbara A 48 *10:42.63* GOLD *5th Annual June Krauser Summer Splash
*10* *Schickore, Jutta 46 *10:51.33* DOC *34th Lakeside Masters Long Course Invitational
*#* *Name Age Time* Club *Meet
*1* *Curran, Margee M 48 *9:47.56* WCM *2009 Pacific Masters Long Course Swimming Championships
*2* *Elias-Williams, Maria L 45 *10:00.40* GSMS *2009 USMS National Long Course Championships
*3* *Petersen, Charlotte 45 *10:18.31* SPM *2009 St. Pete Masters Long Course Swimming Championships
*4* *Swanson, Vibeke L 48 *10:38.78* 1776 *2009 Merryman LCM Swim Meet
*5* *Castro, Leticia 49 *11:03.98* GOLD *JK Summer Splash-Dixie Zone Championship
*6* *Fitzgerald, Kimberly H 49 *11:09.58* WMAC *Wisconsin Badger State Games
*7* *Ciampa, Cindy 49 *11:15.52* SKY *2009 SwimLouisville.com Masters Invitational
*8* *Gregory, Ellen D 45 *11:21.90* ISF *2009 USMS National Long Course Championships
*9* *DeLozier, Anna R 46 *11:23.77* ARIZ *Arizona Long Course State Meet
*10* *Uecker, Anne 49 *11:30.50* MESC *NE LCM Championship
Of course, women have remained relatively unaffected by the suit change. For this reason alone, men have lost 50 per cent of support in their quest to be treated equally in the pool.
How many female swimmers do we hear campaigning for men to have the right to wear the same costumes as women? None!
Thanks girls.
Here, here!
Personally I don't see the problem with women having different coverage then men, after all they wouldn't be allowed to swim in a male swimsuit.
It seems to me that there is an underlying assumption that the suits give advantage by area covered, implying it was reduced surface drag or buoyancy that produced the advantage. I suspect that most of the advantage was in compression and the "girdle effect". Since the new women's suits don't have zippers and use straps on the back it's not obvious that the additional coverage imparts as much advantage as some here think.
Admittedly, that's partly conjecture on my part, the advantage of the 2009 suits was never thoroughly and scientifically pinned down, but there's a bigger difference between the rubber suits of last year and the current suits than is sometimes recognized in these discussions.
Lindsey, you may be right about this, but I think the data will ultimately prove you wrong. My friend Jack Martin, who is at the PR meet, wrote me on Facebook:
Thought that I was moving faster than I was actually going. The Blue70 advantage is significant. You glide out further on the turns and can recover a bit more. The regular Tech suits were an advantage as well.
I am going to guess for me the Blue70 is worth about 2 seconds per hundred. Some guys lose more time some less.
Shaving and a Tech Text can keep the loss of speed down, but everyone is slower. Women have more coverage and have not slowed quite as much.
Believe it or not, I think you can get used to racing in the new suits and minimize the loss in speed. You don't glide as well off turns and at start w/o the suits.
I will know a little more after the 400 and 100 Freestyle events tomorrow.
He swam the 400 this morning:
4 Martin, Jack R 59 1776 5:05.00 5:05.75
35.47 1:12.95 (37.48)
1:51.65 (38.70) 2:30.86 (39.21)
3:09.52 (38.66) 3:48.45 (38.93)
4:27.80 (39.35) 5:05.75 (37.95)
This is a little over 1 second per 100 slower than last year in a textile speed suit:
9 Martin, Jack R 58 1776 5:04.00 5:00.29 2.00
35.35 1:13.22(37.87) 1:53.00(39.78) 2:32.66(39.66)
3:11.71(39.05) 3:49.36(37.65) 4:25.88(36.52) 5:00.29(34.41)
Of course, last year, Jack made the mistake of swimming next to me and letting me do the pacing for us.
8 Thornton, James 57 ABM 5:03.27 4:58.31 3.00
35.14 1:15.38(40.24) 1:54.79(39.41) 2:34.19(39.40)
3:12.20(38.01) 3:49.58(37.38) 4:25.50(35.92) 4:58.31(32.81)
(Note: my first 200 was 2:34.19; my second 200 was 2:24.22--a 10 second negative split!)
Note: I tried to find a middle-of-the-pack woman who swam the 400 in Leslie's age group this year and last year, but to my astonishment, there were none!
Which brings me to another gender-oriented pet peeve of mine, i.e., that masters swimming is for women a bit like pro tennis. There are a few exceptionally fast swimmers at the top--the Leslies, the Eneys, the Karlyns, the Laura Vals. Call these the Williams sisters of masters swimming.
But the depth drops off very quickly from there.
Unlike the male ranks, where savage executioners await to capitalize on every possible mistake to knock yeoman like me from the most tenuous of holds upon a Top 10 spot!
Of course, women have remained relatively unaffected by the suit change. For this reason alone, men have lost 50 per cent of support in their quest to be treated equally in the pool.
How many female swimmers do we hear campaigning for men to have the right to wear the same costumes as women? None!
Thanks girls.
I believe that all right-thinking individuals, male and female, support any measure that allows men of a certain age and build to cover up whatever they wish to hide. I am prepared to campaign for the right of all men to keep ALL their goodies wraps if they so choose. It's a public service, really.
My own unscientific study for a 50 LCM BR:
Year: 2007
Age: 43
Pool: Outdoor Mt. Hood CC (all deep)
Time: 32.3
Apparel: Speedo FSI jammer, no cap
Comments: first meet after 21 years; no one to race; training to date 4-6 months swimming, heavy lifting routine
Year: 2008
Age: 44
Pool: Outdoor Mt. Hood CC (all deep) - LCM Nationals
Time: 30.4
Apparel: B70 full body, Aqua V cap
Comments: no one to race; excellent training season after very poor Austin SCY Nationals; heavy lifting routine
Year: 2009
Age: 45
Pool: Indoor Indianapolis - LCM Nationals
Time: 30.9
Apparel: B70 full body, Aqua V cap
Comments: intermittent training since Clovis SCY Nationals; major shoulder problems; felt fat and weak; too many people to race(!); almost no lifting routine for 3 months prior
Year: 2010
Age: 46
Pool: Outdoor Mt. Hood CC (all deep)
Time: 31.? (my wife thinks 6)
Apparel: B70 jammer, no cap
Comments: heavy dryland routine until 3 days before meet (P90X); felt very strong, but no explosiveness; no one to race; only 10 swim workouts since Atlanta SCY Nationals; no shoulder problems
CONCLUSION: For me, it is too difficult to evaluate the "exact" impact of the suits. Compared to my swim last week, I swam only a few tenths slower in a crappy jammer with no cap 3 years ago. I certainly do not get as much glide as I did in the B70, but the B70 jammer "felt" relatively smooth and buoyant. Considering that I am stronger, leaner and more positive than I was last summer, I think the tech suits - for me - are good for about +/- 1 sec per 50. The race last week "felt" like a 30 low - I was shocked when I was told my time. However, my split on a 400 MR was a 1:10 mid, versus a 1:09 flat start last summer - so maybe it is a bit less than 1 sec per 50.
In any case, I highly recommend the P90X routine. I will repeat it again from 1 November (for 12 weeks), giving me some time to gain some pool speed before Mesa.
YMMV.
Not to mention it was the materials the 2009 suits used that seemed responsible for them being considerably faster than the previous generation of suits. Now that those materials are banned it's not obvious that covering more of the body makes a huge difference like it did with the rubberized suits.
At the elite level, I saw a number of people (Piersol and Phelps come to mind) who would wear legskins instead of body suits. I still think they HAVE to be slower, but you can't argue with the success of those two.
But how can legskins really be that much better than jammers? Why would covering knees & calves be so important to swimming? It doesn't make much sense to me.
Which brings me to another gender-oriented pet peeve of mine, i.e., that masters swimming is for women a bit like pro tennis. There are a few exceptionally fast swimmers at the top--the Leslies, the Eneys, the Karlyns, the Laura Vals. Call these the Williams sisters of masters swimming.
But the depth drops off very quickly from there.
Jim seems determined to ensure that the thread-title remains an accurate description of the posts!
While his sentiment definitely seems like sour grapes to me and so I hesitate to endorse it, it is undeniably true that there are fewer female masters competitors than male for all but the very youngest age groups.
My *impression* is that, with the exception of Mike Ross, there just aren't any males who completely dominate their age group like you have over on the women side of things. But I don't have the data on hand to back this assertion. I suppose one thing you can do is look at the All-Stars over the past few years and see how many events each won, and compare the numbers for the men and the women.
I am prepared to campaign for the right of all men to keep ALL their goodies wraps if they so choose. It's a public service, really.
:rofl:
Note: I tried to find a middle-of-the-pack woman who swam the 400 in Leslie's age group this year and last year, but to my astonishment, there were none!
Which brings me to another gender-oriented pet peeve of mine, i.e., that masters swimming is for women a bit like pro tennis. There are a few exceptionally fast swimmers at the top--the Leslies, the Eneys, the Karlyns, the Laura Vals. Call these the Williams sisters of masters swimming.
But the depth drops off very quickly from there.
This topic came up in conversation just the other day, and I think there are many reasons to explain this. One of the most compelling explanations that came up in my little group seemed to be sociological. More guys of child rearing age have more "free" time to devote to training and competing at a high level. Not many guys are "the mom" and are juggling work, "mom stuff", training, competing.... and that leads to more guys at the top and filling in that gap between the top and the middle of the pack. I know from reading the blogs here that a lot of the guys on this board are very involved in all the shuttling around, homework help, youth coaching, bake-sale, etc. stuff that takes up parents' time - but we're talking in general here.
I often wonder how people (men and women) at the very top manage to get in 40 hours of work, train, compete, dither around on USMS discussion boards, AND get all the parenting and house-related stuff taken care of. It's possible that one or the other of these things is being done by someone else. Or maybe they're just more talented and get phenomenal results with a regular amount of working out. Or maybe it's something else entirely!
I wonder if that "gap" fills in in the older age groups when people's kids get older and folks who were previously engaged in the heavy-duty parenting years find they have more time to devote to other things.
I know that's the case with me. Now that my kids are out of the house, I've got a lot more time and energy to devote to things like swim.
But I'm in that middle of the pack group....My goal isn't to get to the top (not going to happen) but to move up to that space between the top and the middle.
That's my theory anyway, more women are involved in the day-to-day parenting stuff and are therefore less available to fill in the upper-middle, lower-upper class ranks. I think it's a mom thing
While his sentiment definitely seems like sour grapes to me and so I hesitate to endorse it, it is undeniably true that there are fewer female masters competitors than male for all but the very youngest age groups.
Well, you know what they say. The sourest grapes make the sweetest wine.
Or is it the bitterest?
It is very hard to stay up with conventional sayings, especially when you make them up yourself.
Two additional notes:
1) It seems ironic that you, Mr. Stevenson, would cite Michael Ross as the dominator of all males. Is he not, coincidentally, the one who may have bumped off some of your former records, eh?
There is just a snifter her of a sour grape calling another grape acid, tart, bitter, acerbic, vinegary, dry, tangy, acrid. Perhaps I am just imagining things!
2) I did find another example, albeit one that on its surface seems to refute my hypothesis, i.e., Girls Get Everything! Again, it is a comparison of times in my age group and Leslie's age group. In this case, we have two world record holders both swimming the 50 breaststroke:
Event 37 Women 45-49 50 LC Meter Breaststroke
==================================================================
NATL: N 33.98 8/5/2007 CAROLINE KRATTLI
WORLD: W 33.98 8/5/2007 CAROLINE KRATTLI, USA
Name Age Team Seed Finals
==================================================================
1 Krattli, Caroline 48 SDSM 34.66 36.13
Caroline was 2.15 seconds slower this year.
Event 38 Men 55-59 50 LC Meter Breaststroke
==================================================================
NATL: N 32.44 8/7/2009 JACK GROSELLE
WORLD: W 31.05 9/16/2009 WALTER KUSCH, GER
Name Age Team Seed Finals
==================================================================
1 Groselle, Jack R 56 O*H* 32.44 33.66
Jack was 1.22 seconds slower this year.
On the surface, it seems like in this one instance, the GIRL DID NOT GET EVERYTHING. However, if you look below the surface, you will see that Jack's world record was set last year; Caroline's was set three years ago, when there weren't even B70s.
(I have no idea what she was wearing, but Jack did seem to have a neoprene suit of some sort at Indy last year.)
The grapes continue to develop an ever more deliciously acrid tang. When Leslie beats me in the 50 free at Colony Zones, I dare say they will be ripe for the making of poisonous wine!
This topic came up in conversation just the other day, and I think there are many reasons to explain this. One of the most compelling explanations that came up in my little group seemed to be sociological. More guys of child rearing age have more "free" time to devote to training and competing at a high level. Not many guys are "the mom" and are juggling work, "mom stuff", training, competing.... and that leads to more guys at the top and filling in that gap between the top and the middle of the pack. I know from reading the blogs here that a lot of the guys on this board are very involved in all the shuttling around, homework help, youth coaching, bake-sale, etc. stuff that takes up parents' time - but we're talking in general here.
Certainly. I also wonder if -- beyond the "more free time" argument -- males are more hard-wired to engage in the competitive aspects of masters swimming, compared to females who might appreciate the training/fitness aspect but don't bother to go to meets, or don't get that worked up over them if they do go.
Not that there aren't quite a few examples of extremely competitive-minded female swimmers...but (as you say) we are generalizing.
But how can legskins really be that much better than jammers? Why would covering knees & calves be so important to swimming? It doesn't make much sense to me.
Perhaps getting a little flotation in the legs makes a substantial difference in drag for many swimmers. Cover more of the leg and this effect increases.
Personally I don't see the problem with women having different coverage then men, after all they wouldn't be allowed to swim in a male swimsuit.
It seems to me that there is an underlying assumption that the suits give advantage by area covered, implying it was reduced surface drag or buoyancy that produced the advantage. I suspect that most of the advantage was in compression and the "girdle effect". Since the new women's suits don't have zippers and use straps on the back it's not obvious that the additional coverage imparts as much advantage as some here think.
Admittedly, that's partly conjecture on my part, the advantage of the 2009 suits was never thoroughly and scientifically pinned down, but there's a bigger difference between the rubber suits of last year and the current suits than is sometimes recognized in these discussions.
