Suits, Schedule and Doping
UPDATE: See the Phelps vs Spitz page.
Originally this page was supposed to be about the schedule of events and the new LZR suits, but Jessica Hardy injected some more work for me. You see, Hardy won the 100 Breast and took second to Dara Torres in the 50 Free. Then it was revealed that she tested postive for clenbuterol on July 4. Clenbuteral is a banned substance found in asthma medications. She maintains that she did not knowingly or intentionally take any banned substances, but with this hanging over her head, she has withdrawn from the games. It sucks most for the athletes like Tara Kirk who by one hundredth of second took third in the breaststroke, but didn't make the team in another event. So although the number 2 position in that event is rightfully hers, under IOC rules Hardy must be replaced with someone already on the team. Thus we will see Rebecca Soni, who won the 200, step up in Hardy's place in the 100. A similar circumstance has kept Lara Jackson from making the trip to Beijing and Kara Lynn Joyce (on the team in the 400 Free Relay) will swim the 50. Doping problems in swimming have typically been limited college students taking their roommates Adderal to cram for a test or pump out a midterm paper. These substances are banned, and it doesn't matter that you were finishing your physics take home with the stimulant, it can't be in your system if you are going to compete on this level.
While we're on doping, let me very quickly note that some people think that Dara Torres can't be doing what she's doing without it. I guess they forget that she was setting the American Records in these events back in the 80s too. Most people would have to dope to do what she's doing. But she is clearly blessed with great genetics for this sport.
LZR - The Suit That Breaks World Records
Now, let's turn to the issues far more interesting than doping, because that happens in every sport. The technology of racing suits is always moving forward. There was first the "speedo" or what people commonly think of as the speedo (Speedo is really a brand and you see Speedos that don't look like "speedos" in Beijing). So it was at first just a tight fitting suit instead of bagging trunks. Then the paper suit came around, made of paper thin material and typically worn 1 or 2 sizes too small. The common theme is always reducing drag, and I think that one of the real jumps forward was the AquaBlade. This suit featured vertical stripes of alternating drag coefficients. Since the water slid off of one stipe faster than the one next to it, vortices were formed and this actually reduced overall drag. The AquaBlade is where you first saw men wearing something called a "Jammer", where the suit went down over their thighs.
Suit technology is starting to reduce the drag compared to skin
Now, if you think back to Athens, we were already ahead of the AquaBlade and it's Jammer. The suit technology then was called the FastSkin, well FastSkinII or FSII for short. At that point, people started wearing varies cuts that would cover most of their body depending upon what they swam and what they felt comfortable in. Men would wear "women's" suits. This suit was the LZR of its time.
Suits present less drag than shaved human skin
Enter the LZR Racer Suit - 44 World Records in 5 Months
Speedo worked with NASA and the Australian Institute of Sport along with many of the world's greatest swimmers to develop the new suit. It allows blood to flow to the muscles while keeping the skin in hydrodynamic form. It is supposed to present 10% less passive drag than the FSII from Athens, and 5% less than the previous best suit the FS-PRO. This swimsuit has no seams, rather than stitching the pieces together they are "ultrasonically welded). The panels you see on the athletes bodies are embedded into the base fabric to compress the body into amore streamlined shape. Speedo scanned the bodies of over 400 of the world's best swimmers as part of designing this suit.
Australian Superstars model the LZR
There was talk of banning this suit, that it gave an unfair advantage some athletes. This did not happen thankfully, and I don't think that we should be banning any suits from the competition. Now, while this suit definitely makes it easier to drop times, the most of the WRs that people will be swimming against were set wearing this suit. So while we saw some incredible time drops recently due specifically to this suit, swimmers like Phelps are going up against times they have already set in these suits so time drops will be due to the other factors that an athlete can control.
Beijing Swimming Schedule - Mornings?
I take it most people have never spent time at a natatorium for a meet that spans several days. Let me explain how these swimmers have spent their entire lives competing. In the morning is prelims (a.k.a. heats) and in the evening are semis and finals. Athletes typically perform their best in the evenings, so it makes sense to follow that format. In bigger meets that span more than just one weekend, finals are usually the day after semis, which themselves might be the day after prelims.
Now, in China the whole country is on one time zone, which happens to be 12 hours ahead of EDT. This means that if they followed the normal scheduling, the finals would be swum in the mornings for America. This is not good for American television audiences who want to see the action without knowing what happened after seeing it on their favorite news website. This means that finals are going to begin at 10 AM local time, making it prime time television in America. This flips the athlete's schedule over, and could result in some substandard performances. However, as Michael Phelps said, "It's the Olympics. If you can't get up to swim in the morning, don't go." I agree with his sentiment, but still wish we weren't messing with the sleep/compete cycles of the swimmers just to make it so they swim live on TV.
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