By Spiro Zavos
August 15th 2008 @ 6:06am
Related coverage
Are performance-enhancing swimsuits the new drugs?
Up until Wednesday morning, there had been sixteen World Records set at the Beijing Water Cube. This was on the fifth day of swimming. At Athens four years ago, there were eight World Records set in the entire swim event, and five of these were in relays.
The likelihood is that, by the end of the swim tournament, there will be more than double the World Records set at the Beijing Games than there were at Athens. What is going on here?
The excellent swimming reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Cowley, raised this issue in an article which had this opening sentence: “Is it the fast pool, the fast swimsuits or the fast swimmers?”
He quotes the Australian swim coach Alan Thompson as insisting that the fast swimsuits are less of the reason than the improvements in techniques instilled into swimmers by their coaches, along with better training methods.
He gave the example of Michael Phelps’ underwater work, which has added a ‘fifth stroke’ to swimmers’ techniques.
You expect a coach to put forward the idea that “we’ve probably got some of the greatest coaches coaching at the moment.”
Michel Cowley also makes the point that the pool at Beijing, with its 3 metre depth, special lane ropes, and an overflow guttering that disperses the turbulent water out of the pool instead of sending it back in, is “lightning quick.”
Again, Alan Thompson acknowledged this, but continued to insist that “the times are coming down because the competition is becoming so much greater.”
Why is the competition so significantly greater at Beijing, though, than at Athens?
My answer is the new high-tech Speedo LZR Racer suits.
As Michael Cowley points out, since these suits have been released in February, they’ve been used in 60 World Record performances.
On Wednesday morning I watched a World Record being set in the women’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay. All the Australian girls wore their full high-tech suits.
An interesting blog in The Times by Simon Barnes, arguably the leading sports columnist in the world, notes that one of the functions of the high-tech suit is to compress the body. For women this means “compressing their breasts, which improves a female swimmers’ hydrodynamic efficiency.”
And this restriction on the ‘flapping’ of a swimmers’ muscles helps “the process of recovery after each stroke”, making it “infinitely easier for the body to deal with.
“An expert in biomimetics has suggested that the suit also helps your body to deal with pain: the compression makes the body send less urgent messages to the brain.”
Barnes wonders if the high-tech suits are “an early example of massed gene-doping?”
A somewhat simiiiar thought occurred to a reader of the Sydney Morning Herald who asked this telling question in a letter to the editor: “What is the difference between performance-enhancing drugs and performance-enhancing high-tech swim suits?”
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Rob said | August 15th 2008 @ 7:20am | Report comment
Spiro,
There must be a finite limit to how fast a person can swim/run over a distance so I would think that unless we are creating bionic athletes wouldn’t that point be getting closer to achievement rather than further away?
On the question of performance enhancing drugs I think it seems to be fairly arbritary. Is a pain killer/ cortisone injection less performance enhancing than other substances?
Mungo said | August 15th 2008 @ 8:15am | Report comment
If they make a dual fitting suit I could let the wife wear it to help her recover after each stroke, then I could wear it when her mother comes round to help deal with the pain.
Mr Mac said | August 15th 2008 @ 9:08am | Report comment
The swimsuits are to swimming just as the “high tech” bats are to swimming and clubs & balls are to golf.
sheek said | August 15th 2008 @ 9:43am | Report comment
I think too much is being made of the swimsuits. My only concern here is that every athlete has access to the gear. That then makes it a level playing field.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of the suits, but you can’t stop progress. Providing it’s avaialbale to all.
Mr Mac said | August 15th 2008 @ 9:43am | Report comment
“bats are to cricket”
David N said | August 15th 2008 @ 9:54am | Report comment
One of the argument agt drugs is that they create
an unfair advantage for those who take them ,the drugs that are legal like painkillers l are available to everyone as are (or will/should be ) the suits . It is silly to stop coaching and technology advancements in sport but it is important that everyone competes on a level playing field. Swimming seems fascinated by the need to break world records but the same is not true in most sports , its the competition that enthrals us and at some point swimmers will hit the level at which the world records no longer fall, wont stop me watching the sport …
Hoy said | August 15th 2008 @ 9:57am | Report comment
I think Spitz said that the suites only helped when you swam a certain speed that only an elite few could do anyway. If you swim slower than that, they are useless.
Can someone confirm that one?
joeb said | August 15th 2008 @ 10:17am | Report comment
letter to the editor: “What is the difference between performance-enhancing drugs and performance-enhancing high-tech swim suits?” Interesting point.
Interesting what Cowley says in his article about the pool in Beijing: “the one in the Cube is lightning quick.”
One simple solution to create a ‘level playing field’ would be to standardise the swimsuits for all competitors, but ultimately is that really in the interest of progress? Eg., at the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA when the US track cycling team debuted those initially controversial ‘performance enhancing aerodynamic helmets’ (with the pointy bit sticking out the back). Today all time trial cyclists wear them as standard gear, as even our Cadel Evans did recently in the TDF.
Cowley’s article also points out:
“This pool is … a metre deeper than usual. This means … ‘less resistance and turbulence off the bottom’ for the swimmers.” (So presumably this assists the swimmer swim faster unimpeded. I’d have to say I’m for it.)
“It’s also wider … one empty lane either side,” yes, did notice that, “which means any waves can be dissipated into those lanes, then into the gutter, which is a simple overflow system. That means ‘the water runs into the drains and away, rather than bouncing off a raised gutter and back into the pool as waves.’” (Again the pool design, let’s call it ’state-of-the-art’, therefore further enhances and compliments the swimmer’s ability/athleticism by dissipating the waves into the ’simple overflow system’. This pool design is now presumably the new benchmark, or should be imho.)
“Then there are the anti-wave lane ropes, designed so that swimmers don’t get any wash from their opponents’ in other lanes, ‘meaning they can swim in calm water’. In the days before such ropes, swimmers sometimes had to deal with surf-like conditions.” — Yes, seem to recall the ’surf-like conditions’ quite well, so by reducing that effect, it creates more of a level playing field, so to speak. Again credit to the designers.
For mine there’s also a lot of merit in Aus coach Alan Thompson’s comment that the standard of coaching is higher than ever, and the athletes fitter. The way we blew the Chinese and Yanks out of the pool — and who were also wearing the latest tech suits by the look of them — in that brilliant Women’s 4×200m freestyle relay final yesterday was and is such a morale booster for the country. (Hope our Wallabies saw it, and attempt to emulate the feat in the next few weeks.)
Personally I’m for the advancements in the new swimsuits, and better designed Olympic pools etc. Makes for great entertainment as well. Go the Aussies today again — blitz ‘em!
stuff happens said | August 15th 2008 @ 10:45am | Report comment
I have a question for you? Do you believe that spikes are an asset to runners and improve their times. Of course you do.
So unles you are proposing that we ban spikes it is difficult to oppose swimsuit development as long as the ’snakes’ are available for all competitors ( as someone else has already said).
Here’s another question, why are the Aussie girls as a team so much better than the blokes – again?
Sundo said | August 15th 2008 @ 10:47am | Report comment
What is the difference between performance-enhancing drugs and performance-enhancing high-tech swim suits? Easy – the swimsuits won’t make your testicles fall off (or grow the female swimmers a new set)……..
Spiro Zavos said | August 15th 2008 @ 12:30pm | Report comment
Sundo
Apparently some medicos are suggesting that the intense compression from the high-tech swim suits might damage the breasts of the swimmers. We don’t know what the medical consequences of these suits might be.
More evidence of the effect of the high-tech suits on performance comes from Libby Trickett’s ‘misjudgment’ in not using the suit in her semi-fina; of the women’s free style 100m. Her times of 54.10, the 9th fastest in the semi-finals, compares poorly with her record of 52.88.
You can be sure that she’ll be going hi-tech in the final.
BigAl said | August 15th 2008 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
#!#!#! NEWSFLASH NEWSFLASH! – Kabul 3008 – Men’s 50m freestyle – won in World Record Time !!
0.00000000173 sec before he started !
. . . finally a swimming world record worth thinking about !
joeb said | August 16th 2008 @ 3:06am | Report comment
Spiro
“More evidence of the effect of the high-tech suits on performance comes from Libby Trickett’s ‘misjudgment’ in not using the suit in her semi-fina[l] of the women’s free style 100m. Her times of 54.10, ‘the 9th fastest’ in the semi-finals, compares poorly with her record of 52.88.”
Listening to Ray Hadley and Nicole Stephenson on ‘GB, apparently Libby has always had a habit of qualifying for races well below her PB and often just sneeking in. Eg., in John Huxley’s SMH article ‘Shock therapy’, Trickett after winning Silver in the 100 freestyle, the paragraph reads:
– Trickett, of course, was her usual self: smiling, bubbling, counting her blessings that she had even been allowed to swim, in lane eight, following the disqualification of a Chinese swimmer [Jiaying Pang]. “I’m so thankful for that because in Athens, I never got another opportunity, so to come out there was wonderful. I really wanted to give it my absolute all. I wanted to be hurting right at the end of it, and I definitely did that. Full credit to Britta [Steffen]. She swam a fantastic race.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/swimming/shock-therapy/2008/08/15/1218307227431.html
But it certainly was interesting when Eamon Sullivan completed the 50m freestyle qualifier dash that before uttering a word to Seven’s poolside commentator Daniel Kowalski, he asked Dan to ‘please unzip me’, such must be the discomfort of being so compressed in those things.
In reality those hi-tech swimsuits must be more uncomfortable and annoying than the current skin-tight rugger jerseys as worn by the Wallabies & co… (thanks to an overly observant Pom, SCW!)
dasilva said | August 17th 2008 @ 9:01pm | Report comment
The only reason I want performance enhancing drugs to be illegal is that its damage the health of the athlete and the only way people can compete with them is to take drugs that damage their health. (you cannot compare a theorise damage to health of wearing a swimsuit to the proven damage of performance enhancing drugs)
Really what makes an advantage an unfair or fair one. People get access to world class training and coaches and sporting facilities, dieting are all advantages that one athlete can have over the other. Why can’t we add swimsuits to that list. In most sports there always technological improvement ot improve performances. Lets say someone using latest technology from the AIS to help improve training performances (there are using virtual reality in somes sports) that other countries don’t have access to. Should we ban that because that is an unfair advantage? Should we have standardise coaching. facilities as well to even the odds.