Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mg1942 on August 12, 2008, 05:04:42 PM
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Most of the world records were smashed using materials that was developed by NASA, and then marketed to Speedo.
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the only way to fix this is to require complete nekkidness when swimming in competitions. And no bodily coatings of lubricant either!
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If super-suit equivilates to horsey pills, probably. But, everyone's doin' it. (or 'em)
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Who cares. It's not like using the latest technology overcomes swimming prowess or horsepower shortcomings in a car...
Or does it?
:noid
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there's a propeller on the end of his banana.
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Everyone is using them.
To add to this, runners are using ultra light weight shoes.
Bicyclists are using cutting edge helmets, bicycles, and clothing.
Football players wearing better helmets, etc.
All the same stuff, technology is part of sports and athletes will use them.
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Honey, where's my super suit?
(http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/160/3803683.jpg)
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I think they should be more concerned about the <16 year old female Chinese gymnasts....
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See Rule #7
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Well, the suit his wearing was originally developed by NASA.
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Well, the suit his wearing was originally developed by NASA.
And NASA also developed manufacturing techniques that aid shoe companies. The list could go on forever. So what if NASA developed it? Would it make you sleep better at night if some random Joe scientist developed it?
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I think they should be more concerned about the <16 year old female Chinese gymnasts....
http://www.chatmag.com/news/hansen.jpg
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So what if NASA developed it? Would it make you sleep better at night if some random Joe scientist developed it?
Yes......Yes it would.
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Yes......Yes it would.
Can't trust NASA... they're the ones who faked the moon landings. :rolleyes:
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Can't trust NASA... they're the ones who faked the moon landings. :rolleyes:
Well they'll fit right in at the olympics then :D
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So in the news tonight they talked about the suit, apparently it's not so NASA'y... it was developed in part in NZ at the Uni of Otago. And speedo also offered to let any swimmer at the olympics use the suits for free.
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Any way you cut it put on supersuit,superbicycle,supershoes. There is still some one who is paddling in the pool turning those pedals or running like a mad person to win. Still comes back to the individual.
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Funny how certain types of advantages are perfectly legal, like a suit that's shaving multiple seconds off of times...
but taking a chemical that helps you heal faster so you can train more often is not only illegal, but will cost you all of your sponsors and accomplishments.
Technology should advance on safety gear, like football helmets... but the swimsuit is crap. Either let them use every advantage, or none at all.
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Funny how certain types of advantages are perfectly legal, like a suit that's shaving multiple seconds off of times...
but taking a chemical that helps you heal faster so you can train more often is not only illegal, but will cost you all of your sponsors and accomplishments.
Technology should advance on safety gear, like football helmets... but the swimsuit is crap. Either let them use every advantage, or none at all.
i thought the olympics were to test/demonstrate/prove the competitors actual physuical ability?
is so, then why do these people need this stuff?
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the only way to fix this is to require complete nekkidness when swimming in competitions.
If Phelps wasnt able to stick those big ears behind a cap his times would be about 2 to 3 seconds slower. :devil
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i thought the olympics were to test/demonstrate/prove the competitors actual physuical ability?
is so, then why do these people need this stuff?
Theoretically, they don't need it at all... but it's used all the time. It's just my opinion that it should be all or nothing, instead of the hypocrisy of what is & is not allowed now. Goes beyond the Olympics into pretty much all sports.
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Theoretically, they don't need it at all...
that's all that needs to be said.
for swimmers, then just a pair of swim trunks, and bathing suits for the women. all of the other sports too......just basic uniforms. none of this "performance enhancing" bullchit.
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The suit doesnt do anything to speed the swimmer up it just doesnt wrinkle up to cause drag in the water. Pretty lame whine this one.
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The suit doesnt do anything to speed the swimmer up it just doesnt wrinkle up to cause drag in the water. Pretty lame whine this one.
well, if something wrinkles, and causes drag, then in theory, the drag would slow him down.
still think they should forget the fancy stuff and just do what they train to do
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The suit doesn't do anything to speed the swimmer up it just doesn't wrinkle up to cause drag in the water. Pretty lame whine this one.
I remember a reading a quote from a female American swimmer who stated the suit allowed her hips to ride higher in the water. Sounds like the suit may add some buoyancy as well as reduce drag.
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I remember a reading a quote from a female American swimmer who stated the suit allowed her hips to ride higher in the water. Sounds like the suit may add some buoyancy as well as reduce drag.
That wasn't the suit, that was the extra helping of Peach Cobbler at the Beijing Hometown Buffet.
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12,000 calories a day! :O
I remember when I was weight lifting and trying to pack muscle on, I was eating 6,000 calories a day (two-a-day work outs 5 times a week) and I near puked after each meal because I ate so much. I can't even imagine 12,000 calories!
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I remember a reading a quote from a female American swimmer who stated the suit allowed her hips to ride higher in the water. Sounds like the suit may add some buoyancy as well as reduce drag.
She just wanted photographers shooting her hips. After games playboy bid! :aok
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Which athletes don't use equipment/clothing that enhances their performance?
Football pads/helmets may look like "safety" equipment, but in truth they allow the players to perform in a manner that would be impossible to sustain without the pads. What about skis, kayaks, tennis rackets, high-tech bicycles, etc? Don't they contribute to an enhanced performance?
As for the swimsuit, as a former competitive swimmer I'll tell you that you missed the most obvious performance enhancing piece of equipment the swimmers use. Without goggles their times would suffer hugely. The fastest part of the race is the start, followed by the turns. Clear vision is massively important to properly approach and time your flip turn. A few inches too far from or close to the wall and your turn will suffer. A goggle malfunction can easily cost you the race.
Wearing the low-drag suit isn't any more "artificial" than it would be to wear a big draggy pair of trunks. If anything, reducing drag to a level more consistant to skin is less "gamey" than applying the artificial drag of the trunks.
As far as the evolution of sports goes, athletes have always and will always be looking for an edge. Heck, even our modern knowledge of diet, mental and physical conditioning, and the easy, rapid transmittal of information gives modern athletes an "unfair" advantage over our "ancestors".
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I saw an article a few days ago (didn't have time to read it) mentioning that performance drugs were getting away from means of detection. It argued some of the good reasons to legalize doping methods (since it's not just drugs but genetic treatments too, now), obviously including the level playing field argument, but also that average joes would benefit from it.
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Phelps isnt gaining from the suit -- its his dolphin kick. Watch the races, and you'll see that he makes up huge amounts on the competition during the kick phase after the turns.
Underwater dolphin kicking so dramatically reduces drage from surface turbulence and the air water interface that there's a rule limiting its use to 15 meters. Phelps has 3 big advantages in this phase of the race: He has magnificent mechanics; he has excellent lung capacity, so he comes close to the 15 meter limit every turn (including the last one, where he gains a lot of ground); and particularly from his SIZE 14 FEET! Turns out that 90% of the thrust from the dolphin kick comes from the feet.
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I saw an article a few days ago (didn't have time to read it) mentioning that performance drugs were getting away from means of detection.
Suspected as much.
THink about it -- there was a race where ALL 3 MEDAL FINISHERS surpassed the previous best time in the history of the world. Just seems veeery unlikely that result could have happened without something major changing about the sport, and I haven't heard about any groundbreaking technical changes (like the Fosbury Flop brought about in the high jump so long ago.)
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The new testing coming out doesn't look for specific drugs. It's like adware. They'll always make a new version faster than you can release detectors. Instead, they establish a baseline and watch your body for changes that would indicate drug use. Right now there is no test at all for certain forms of blood doping. You can freeze your own blood during a training peak, and inject it back in before the competition... at that point, you're superman when it comes to endurance. Only way to detect that type of cheating is to randomly raid athletes houses and hotel rooms.
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Suspected as much.
THink about it -- there was a race where ALL 3 MEDAL FINISHERS surpassed the previous best time in the history of the world. Just seems veeery unlikely that result could have happened without something major changing about the sport, and I haven't heard about any groundbreaking technical changes (like the Fosbury Flop brought about in the high jump so long ago.)
I heard that the pool itself is different than those of past Olympics.
More sophisticated pool design has also helped to dissipate wave action. The pool in Beijing is three meters deep, compared with two meters for many racing pools. The added depth is designed to lessen resistance.
For major international competitions, like the Olympics, the pool is 10 lanes wide, instead of 8. The two empty outside lanes serve as buffers, keeping the waves from ricocheting, dispersing them instead to a gutter system that is flush with the surface of the water. The plastic buoys that serve as lane dividers are designed to direct water downward instead of outward. The nonskid starting blocks are meant to facilitate a propulsive takeoff, similar to track and field, which can shave valuable ticks off the clock.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/olympics/12records.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/olympics/12records.html)
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The new testing coming out doesn't look for specific drugs. It's like adware. They'll always make a new version faster than you can release detectors. Instead, they establish a baseline and watch your body for changes that would indicate drug use. Right now there is no test at all for certain forms of blood doping. You can freeze your own blood during a training peak, and inject it back in before the competition... at that point, you're superman when it comes to endurance. Only way to detect that type of cheating is to randomly raid athletes houses and hotel rooms.
The one I read about (but can't find again..) wasn't a drug, it was genetic. I forgot the specifics, I only remember that it left no chemical trail anywhere, except I guess if you know the procedure and can recognize the signature elsewhere. The article worded it in contrast with that sort of detection though, opposing it to every other method that looked at fluid samples.
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The "suit" is not really much more than the old days of shaving/nair(ing) off of body hair.
Maybe so he doesn't get razor burn?
Seriously, shall we go back to Jordan and the "is it the shoes?" question?
Like lyric said, someone is still paddling, rowing, pedalling, etc.
Do we cry foul and make accusations of cheating because he has size 14 feet and has almost 15% more flexion in the range of motion of his ankles, effectively making his feet like paddles?
IMO he is a superior athlete who has been training very hard for this moment. I fail to grasp the philosophy of why some people get so mad at others who make goals, work hard to attain said goals, and then finally achieve success.
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A goggle malfunction can easily cost you the race.
Didn't keep Phelps from winning the 200 fly and setting a record. His googles were leaking the entire race.
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Many Americans including Phelps have volunteered to do extraordinary testing. Including the storage of their blood into the indefinite future to accomodate tests that we haven't even thought of yet, and daily blood and urinalysis AND they all gave a baseline sample well before the games as a means of comparison.
I think he's clean.
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Didn't keep Phelps from winning the 200 fly and setting a record. His googles were leaking the entire race.
Leaking I could always deal with. Even if one lense completely filled I was Ok. But when they both fill you have a serious handicap. The worst is when they momentarily partially flip down when you hit the water off the blocks. Both lenses fill completely, and then reseal over your eyes. This effectively blinds you to seeing much beyond light and dark. Your ability to track straight down the lane is impaired, as is timing your turns. Not conducive to a good time...
Way back when I swam, our pools were designed as described above. The depth was less, which makes a big difference, and we only had 8 lanes, which also makes a big difference. Our lane dividers were designed with the same goals in mind, as were the water-level gutters. I'm sure that improvements have been made over the last 20 years, but the intention has always been the same.
I know we could feel the difference when we hit pools that were deeper or shallower than ours, and could see it in our times. I swam in the normal "Speedo" days, and 20 years later I'm still amazed at how "draggy" a pair of regular trunks feel.
Back then, we shaved down for state level meets, or for conference or sectionals if it was doubtful you'd make the state cuts. Nairing wasn't considered good enough, as removing the rough, dead surface skin layers was the goal as much as removing the hair. We also used lubricating gell of some sort (don't remember the name). It wasn't as effective as the modern methods I'm sure, but it was good enough that you didn't dare get it on areas of your body where you WANTED drag (palms, feet, inner arms, etc...) I never used a cap, but shaved my head. The cap was considered "faster" though.
MtnMan
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Leaking I could always deal with. Even if one lense completely filled I was Ok. But when they both fill you have a serious handicap. The worst is when they momentarily partially flip down when you hit the water off the blocks. Both lenses fill completely, and then reseal over your eyes. This effectively blinds you to seeing much beyond light and dark. Your ability to track straight down the lane is impaired, as is timing your turns. Not conducive to a good time...
Way back when I swam, our pools were designed as described above. The depth was less, which makes a big difference, and we only had 8 lanes, which also makes a big difference. Our lane dividers were designed with the same goals in mind, as were the water-level gutters. I'm sure that improvements have been made over the last 20 years, but the intention has always been the same.
I know we could feel the difference when we hit pools that were deeper or shallower than ours, and could see it in our times. I swam in the normal "Speedo" days, and 20 years later I'm still amazed at how "draggy" a pair of regular trunks feel.
Back then, we shaved down for state level meets, or for conference or sectionals if it was doubtful you'd make the state cuts. Nairing wasn't considered good enough, as removing the rough, dead surface skin layers was the goal as much as removing the hair. We also used lubricating gell of some sort (don't remember the name). It wasn't as effective as the modern methods I'm sure, but it was good enough that you didn't dare get it on areas of your body where you WANTED drag (palms, feet, inner arms, etc...) I never used a cap, but shaved my head. The cap was considered "faster" though.
MtnMan
didn't they used to not wear goggles?
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Confusedhious say: 3 Legged man swims faster
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Looks like the article I mentioned was probably refering to gene doping.. Looks like it's been around for a few years already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_doping
I haven't followed this at all, so I dunno how hard it really is to detect.
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Spitz won his medals with no goggles (weren't allowed), no cap and a $10 swimsuit. And a bigass mustache.
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didn't they used to not wear goggles?
Yup. They used to not wear suits too.
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Did you know that some of the suits are developed from the same concept as sharks have...the rough skin is actually for speed!!
Look here, very interesting, - James May from the Top Gear crew exploring hydrodynamics....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GLGIomG-bc
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Spitz won his medals with no goggles (weren't allowed), no cap and a $10 swimsuit. And a bigass mustache.
so he won his medals soley on his ability, and pretty much nothing else then? well...maybe there were crooked judges that liked him better................ :noid