Swimmer's Daily

  • Some 8 years ago, a wise man at the Olympiastützpunkt Hamburg told us students, that he expected the underwater dolphin kicks in backstroke to be where the biggest performance improvements would be made in swimming technique the coming years.

    Watch this video from the 200 backstroke final in Manchester this weekend, and notice how equal the two leading swimmers are, until Rogan (yellow cap) stays underwater just that little bit more after the last turn, that makes the difference between a world record and number two.

  • Very interesting read about the state of the art Australian Institute of Sport, where they monitor everything and use pacemaker lights and other stuff to sharpen up training. Also interesting read about how Bernard, Nystrand and Sullivan use video analysis and lots of races to keep ahead of the pack.

  • South Africa’s Gerhard Zandberg has stated that he will rather be fined $4,750 for wearing a Speedo at the Olympics, than sticking with a sponsored Arena that doesn’t deliver. He and Italy’s Filippo Magnini still have hopes for the new Arena R-Evolution, but when FINA wouldn’t allow them to wear it at the World Championships 100 meter freestyle final, Magnini switched to a Speedo.

  • SwimNews’ Craig Lord compared the performance gains of 450 swimmers now wearing the LZR Racer at Manchester 2008, and found that more than 400 of them were clustered in an approximate range from 1.6% to 2.3%. Presented to a professor who spends his life looking at probabilities, the answer was clear: Without a shadow of a doubt … if you have that kind of result in a medical experiment, you’d be looking at ‘case proven’. Read more here on SwimNews.com.

  • Austria’s Markus Rogan lowers the 200 backstroke world record from Ryan Lochte’s 1:49.05 to 1:47.84. Croatia’s Sanja Jovanovic lowers own 50 backstroke world record from 26.50 to 26.37. USA’s Ryan Lochte lowers own 100 IM world record from yesterday’s 51.25 to 51.15. Australia’s Felicity Galvez lowers Libby Lenton’s 100 butterfly world standard of 55.95 to 55.89, Netherlands’s Marleen Veldhuis betters own world 50 freestyle record from 23.58 to 23.25, and Russia sets world record in men’s 400 medley relay with the time of 3:24.29, where USA’s now former world record was 3:24.38.

    Here is the men’s 100 IM final in Italian:

    And the 200 backstroke of Markus Rogan in German (Austrian?)



    Read more at SwimInfo:

    • Men’s 200 backstroke: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17843.asp
    • Women’s 50 backstroke: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17841.asp
    • Men’s 100 IM: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17845.asp
    • 100 butterfly: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17846.asp
    • Women’s 50 freestyle: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17848.asp
    • Men’s 400 medley relay: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/17852.asp

  • Or more specific, from the official FINA website:

    In regards to the swimwear material, the discussion clarified that there was a broad understanding between the manufacturers and FINA that the rules were not meant and should not be interpreted as limiting the materials to fabrics stricto sensu but that other material could be used, as has already been the case for several years.

    FINA confirmed that all the swimsuits approved so far are complying with the specifications.

    Read a lot more about this here on SwimNews. And notice that no, you probably cannot just copy Speedo, since they according to SwimNews have registered some 13 patents on their suit.

  • The world record tally is now 12 at the 2008 FINA World Short Course Championships in Manchester, after United State’s Ryan Lochte set a new 100 IM world standard of 51.25, Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry took more than a second and a half of the 200 IM world record in a time of 2:06.13, and the Netherlands improved their womens 400 freestyle world record with almost 4 seconds, clocking 3:29.42. Read more about it here, here and here on SwimInfo.

  • 19 long-course and 11 short-course world records have now fallen since the launch of the Speedo LZR Racer swim suit in February, of which the LZR was worn in all but one long-course and 2 short-course events.

    In the remaining record breaking events, the swimmers wore other brands of high tech full-body swimsuits.

    According to the CNN, U.S. head coach Mark Schubert believes that every record in the sport could fall at the Beijing Olympics.

    The technology advantage of the new Speedo’s is so big, that according to TimesOnline, the main rivals have let it be known that they will not penalise athletes who wear other apparel when racing for a national team sponsored by Speedo.

  • Sorry, the evening world record bull run wasn’t quite over. The United State’s team of Margaret Hoelzer, Jessica Hardy, Rachel Komisarz and Kara Denby set a new 400 SCM medley world record in the time of 3:51.36, almost half a second faster than the old record of 3:51.84, that Australia set in 2006. See also SwimInfo

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