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When WRs Improved 1.8% In 22 Months
Feb 24, 2010 - Mark Morgan
Mark Morgan, Commonwealth 100m free champion in 1978, lawyer and swim coach, is a man who likes to tell it like it is. On the subject of Australia punching above its weight in sport (correct on a pure statistical basis), he once said this: "For a start, this is a bit of a myth that we pat ourselves on the back for this idea that for our small population [20 million] we do so well. The fact is, Australia is an affluent country with a favourable climate and education systems that expose children to many different sports and sporting opportunities, we spend a lot of money on sport and we value sports very highly, so in sporting terms we're not quite the small country that our population suggests." No surprise then to find him seeking out a thread of the many truths about the shiny suits era. Below is a report compiled by Morgan that indicates the truly significant impact of suits across all events, with sprint events, as widely noted and perceived, the most affected by the arrival (and by implication the departure) of performance-enhancing suits that were banned on January 1. Note the first line of the report below: a figure of 1.8% average gain in all world records, a level spookily close to the 2% gain cited for the Speedo LZR Racer back in early 2008. The report below focusses on world records. A wider sample indicates that the effect on 800m and 1,500m was actually greater when a sample of the top 100 in the world is considered, a fact that reflects that extraordinary nature of the likes of as 14:34.56, for example. Some times transcend suits but the vast majority do not. Moragn's conclusion is this: "The results support the conclusion that the shiny suits offer greater assistance at greater speeds, which is hardly surprising. At greater speeds resistance has a greater effect, so suit characteristics which reduce resistance or drag will be more advantageous at faster speeds. To take an extreme example, it doesn't really matter that a Model T Ford is 'un-aerodynamic' given the speed it travels, but it would if you made a rocket like it!" - Craig Lord
Mark Morgan's analysis of individual events and his interpretation - effect of shiny suits on the pace of world-record progression, February 15 2008 to Dec 31, 2009:
OVERALL
Results: In the 70 individual events the world record improved by an average of 1.8%. This represents a 1.08 second improvement for every minute of swimming!
Interpretation: Clearly the shiny suits resulted in phenomenal and unprecedented improvement in world records.
GENDER
Results: In the 35 individual events for each gender, men's world records improved by an average of 1.7%, and women's world records improved by an average of 1.8%.
Interpretation: The 'shiny suits' appear to have assisted both genders equally. Because men swim faster than women, it may have been expected that the men's records improved at a greater rate. Perhaps the effect of men's faster speed was cancelled out by women (being, on average, less streamlined) receiving greater assistance from the improved 'form' that the suits provided.
COURSE
Results: In the 34 individual long-course events, the world record improved by an average of 1.6% (1.5% for men and 1.6% for women); and in the 36 individual short course events the world record improved by an average of 2.0% (1.9% for men and 2.0% for women).
Interpretation: The greater improvement in short-course events seems to confirm that faster speed resulted in greater assistance from the 'shiny suits'. Not only is swimming speed usually slightly faster in short-course as a result of there being less swimming distance, but short-course also offers at least twice the number of opportunities to push off a wall at faster than swimming speed. It should be noted that this greater improvement in short-course is despite the fact that less of the world's top swimmers (particularly US swimmers) swam short-course regularly or at major meets during 2008 and 2009.
DISTANCE
Results:
Interpretation: These results certainly seem to confirm that the faster the speed, the greater the assistance from the 'shiny suits'. An average 2.8% improvement in 50 metre times equates to a 0.7 second improvement in a 25-second event! At the other end of the scale, apart from the far smaller average improvement, the only three world records that were not broken at least once in the designated time period were both men's 1500 metre records, and the long course women's 1500 metre record, though it must be said that Hackett's two 1500 metre records were well clear of the field prior to 2008.
The only anomaly in the trend demonstrated in the above results is that the 200 metre records improved slightly more than the 100 metre records. This was largely due to some women's 200 metre records dropping by large amounts, as indicated by the discrepancy between the men's and women's results for 200 metre events. In particular, Zige Liu (China) took huge chunks off both women's 200 butterfly records late this year; and both women's 200 IM records, and the short-course women's 200 back record, were also broken by large amounts. The only other significant discrepancy between men's and women's results for any distance is in the 400 metre events, where the women's events improved on average twice as much as the men's events. This may be because on 15 February 2008 the men's 400 FS records were held by Thorpe and Hackett in times that were fairly well ahead of the field. Also, Phelps didn't swim a 400 IM after the 2008 Olympic Games. Given the similarity of the overall figure for men and women, the relative conformity between the results for each gender in each course and distance tends to confirm the validity of the result in that category, and hence the trend in general.
I acknowledge that slight inconsistency in looking at the different distances as a way of determining the effect of 'shiny suits' at different swimming speeds is that speed and distance are not necessarily correlated between strokes. For instance the swimming speed for 400 FS is faster than the swimming speed for the 100 BS. Nevertheless we know that the average swimming speed across all events at a given distance is faster than the average swimming speed for all events in a longer distance.
STROKE
Results:
Interpretation: While it may have been expected that the faster strokes show a slightly greater improvement, that is not the case.
RELAYS
I did not include relay records in these results mainly because in 400 metre relays the swimmers are travelling at 100 metre speeds, and in 800 metre relays they are travelling at 200 metre speeds. Also short-course relays (especially 4x200 FS) are not swum very often; and relays involve four different swimmers travelling at different speeds.
For the record, the twelve relay world records improved by an average of 1.7% (1.8% for men and 1.6% for women); with the eight 400 metre relay world records improving by an average of 1.9% (2.3% for men and 1.5% for women), and the four 800 metre relay world records improving by an average of 1.2% (0.7% for men and 1.6% for women). Ignoring the variables and the small sample, these figures tend to confirm the trend seen in the individual world records.
CONCLUSION
The results support the conclusion that the shiny suits offer greater assistance at greater speeds, which is hardly surprising. At greater speeds resistance has a greater effect, so suit characteristics which reduce resistance or drag will be more advantageous at faster speeds. To take an extreme example, it doesn't really matter that a Model T Ford is 'un-aerodynamic' given the speed it travels, but it would if you made a rocket like it!
THE TABLE
Event Percentage Change
Long Course Short Course
.............. Men Women Men Women
50 FS 3.4 1.7 3.0 1.4
100 FS 1.9 2.3 1.9 1.3
200 FS 1.8 2.2 1.7 1.9
400 FS 0* 1.2 0.8 0.5
800 FS 1.4 0.4 0.4 0.7
1500 FS - - - 0.5
50 BF 2.3 1.5 3.5 3.8
100 BF 1.2 1.0 1.2 1.6
200 BF 0.5 2.9 1.5 2.2
50 BK 3.1 3.7 2.8 3.0
100 BK 2.0 2.2 2.1 2.3
200 BK 2.1 1.4 2.7 2.8
50 BS 1.9 1.7 3.5 3.7
100 BS 0.9 1.0 3.2 1.8
200 BS 0.9 0.3 1.8 2.3
100 IM - - 1.5 1.8
200 IM 0.8 2.8 1.3 2.7
400 IM 1.0 1.3 0.9 2.5
4x100 FS 2.2 1.6 3.3 1.2
4x200 FS 1.1 1.7 0.3 1.6
4x100med 1.6 1.5 2.1 1.7
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN WORLD RECORDS: 15/2/08 - 31/12/09
*actual change 0.005
