No swimming records at London 2012?
Martin Ince
Steve Haake of Sheffield Hallam University told the British Science Festival on Thursday that the London Olympics could end with no new world records in the swimming pool.
The reason is the ban on full-body plastic suits introduced by FINA, the governing body for the sport, in 2010. Their use by swimmers including Michael Phelps of Australia meant that record times plunged at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Professor Haake has compared top swimming times back to 1948. He says that Olympic years normally produce faster times, as do technological innovations such as the introduction of goggles. But times have slowed since the suit ban in 2010 and it will take years for the records set then to be beaten.
He said: “It is possible to work out how long it might take to break the records set by suit users. For the 50m men’s event it could be 10-14 years. But as these suits provided a bigger advantage over shorter distances, new records might be set before that in longer races.” The 1500m, the longest event he has studied, is the only male swimming event with a new world record since the suits were banned.
This means, according to Professor Haake, that FINA has a tricky choice ahead. “They could accept that there will be several Olympic Games and world championships with very few new records,” he said. But governing bodies like to see records fall.
The other alternatives would be to cancel the records set in the suits, or to reinstate their use. Professor Haake points out that there are precedents for new rules in sport. New javelin designs were introduced in 1984 when the old ones were being thrown far enough to land in the crowd. The UCI, the governing body for cycling, has two 24-hour records, one for old-style bikes and one for modern carbon-fibre ones.
He says that introducing new rules often brings about a sudden improvement in performance as athletes get used to novel conditions.
Steve Haake of Sheffield Hallam University told the British Science Festival on Thursday that the London Olympics could end with no new world records in the swimming pool.
The reason is the ban on full-body plastic suits introduced by FINA, the governing body for the sport, in 2010. Their use by swimmers including Michael Phelps of Australia meant that record times plunged at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Professor Haake has compared top swimming times back to 1948. He says that Olympic years normally produce faster times, as do technological innovations such as the introduction of goggles. But times have slowed since the suit ban in 2010 and it will take years for the records set then to be beaten.
He said: “It is possible to work out how long it might take to break the records set by suit users. For the 50m men’s event it could be 10-14 years. But as these suits provided a bigger advantage over shorter distances, new records might be set before that in longer races.” The 1500m, the longest event he has studied, is the only male swimming event with a new world record since the suits were banned.
This means, according to Professor Haake, that FINA has a tricky choice ahead. “They could accept that there will be several Olympic Games and world championships with very few new records,” he said. But governing bodies like to see records fall.
The other alternatives would be to cancel the records set in the suits, or to reinstate their use. Professor Haake points out that there are precedents for new rules in sport. New javelin designs were introduced in 1984 when the old ones were being thrown far enough to land in the crowd. The UCI, the governing body for cycling, has two 24-hour records, one for old-style bikes and one for modern carbon-fibre ones.
He says that introducing new rules often brings about a sudden improvement in performance as athletes get used to novel conditions.
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