To put it in perspective, Janet Evans's best-ever 1500LCM was 15:52. Someone could break the current USMS W40-44 record for 1500LCM (17:56.52) and still be lapped almost twice--in long course--by someone swimming as fast as Janet Evans did at her peak. I don't think there's any way a 40-year-old can train the way a 20-year-old distance swimmer trained in the late '80s/early '90s, but I agree that it will be interesting to see how close she can come to her earlier speeds with whatever way she can train now.
I actually can think of someone for whom the USMS record in the 1650 for W40-44 would not be a ridiculous goal. I would love to see that person come to Arizona and race Janet Evans in the 1650. If the field for the W40-44 1650 at 2011 SCY nationals were like the field at 2010 SCY nationals, we would not give Ms. Evans much of a challenge, unless the challenge were whether or not she could lap the second-place finisher four times.
To put it in perspective, Janet Evans's best-ever 1500LCM was 15:52. Someone could break the current USMS W40-44 record for 1500LCM (17:56.52) and still be lapped almost twice--in long course--by someone swimming as fast as Janet Evans did at her peak. I don't think there's any way a 40-year-old can train the way a 20-year-old distance swimmer trained in the late '80s/early '90s, but I agree that it will be interesting to see how close she can come to her earlier speeds with whatever way she can train now.
I actually can think of someone for whom the USMS record in the 1650 for W40-44 would not be a ridiculous goal. I would love to see that person come to Arizona and race Janet Evans in the 1650. If the field for the W40-44 1650 at 2011 SCY nationals were like the field at 2010 SCY nationals, we would not give Ms. Evans much of a challenge, unless the challenge were whether or not she could lap the second-place finisher four times.
