Live data from Hacker News

Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

sports.yahoo.com

301–310 of 344 posts

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#301
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aluminum is also an excellent conductor.

But also corrodes more than copper, making it unsuitable for household wiring unless special precautions are taken.

Indeed. It has some practical issues that need properly mitigated, but it is still a very good conductor.

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#302
post #276

As a counterpoint to the Parisian pool being slow, China beat the world record in 100m free 10 minutes ago.

Nitpick: for individual sports, probably better to refer to participants as "Pan Zhanle from China" than "China".

Nitpick of the nitpick: in international sports, the preposition used is "of", as in "Pan Zhanle of China", as an elision of "of the Chinese team".

Now, I could make up reasons for this, like not every athlete is strictly "from" the place they compete for, but a just-so story isn't needed here, prepositions are what they are, often arbitrary but always specific.

Citation:

https://apnews.com/article/paris-olympics-china-swimming-pan...

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#303
post #291
post #5

I was a college swimmer, qualified for Olympic Trials in 2012 and 2016. There are absolutely slow and fast pools. It basically comes down to two things: 1. The depth - which is only 7ft in Paris, unusually shallow for a competition pool. 2. The sides. Does the water spill over the sides into the gutters, or smash into a wall and bounce back, creating more chop. A trained eye can see all the swimmers in Paris struggli…

Supposedly, all the Paris 2024 new accommodation were designed with re-usability for the general public after the Olympics. Is it possible that had an impact the swimming pool on design choices ? Put differently, are performance design at odd with more general/accessible design in the case of a swimming pool ?

Given the abandonment of olympic venues all the way round the world, I don't think this is a bad thing.

There's a lot in the book Soccernomics about how the economic value promised by politicians lobbying for hosting things like this rarely pan out.

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#304
post #188

There was a pretty strong world record tonight in the men’s 100 m freestyle of 46.40. Actually more than a second faster than the second place and beating the previous wr by 0.4 seconds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/world/asia/chinese-swimme...

Worth noting that the WR was from a Chinese swimmer and there's a current controversy around whether or not a large contingent of swimmers from the Chinese team violated anti-doping rules after a banned substance was found in their test results several months prior.

Reports are self-policed because it would spread the IoC or other international bodies too thin (ahem... convenient), and the Chinese reporting body "Chinada" dismissed it after saying "trace amounts were found in the kitchen where the athletes were staying at a meet".

I attempted to track down the report to see if the 100m world record breaker was amongst those who tested positive, but wasn't able to find it posted online anywhere. So he may have NOT been incriminated there, or may have been, can't say either way.

I want to celebrate the increased emphasis on swimming internationally as a former college swimmer, but it's also hard to ignore some of the clouds of controversy that have formed surrounding Chinese athletes. I understand the Olympics are a focus point for the country, and again as a former D1 swimmer I can empathize with wanting to do well, but at the same time I hope they're not crossing any lines in effort to win, as that defeats the spirit of competition.

Also worth noting that Phelps and Alison Schmitt testified before Congress and spoke about the intrusive frequency and nature of how often they were drug tested.

The NYT/The Daily did some great reporting and follow-up podcast on the situation.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Rcc852dmPSPytDdRCKInU?si=2...

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#305
post #291
post #5

I was a college swimmer, qualified for Olympic Trials in 2012 and 2016. There are absolutely slow and fast pools. It basically comes down to two things: 1. The depth - which is only 7ft in Paris, unusually shallow for a competition pool. 2. The sides. Does the water spill over the sides into the gutters, or smash into a wall and bounce back, creating more chop. A trained eye can see all the swimmers in Paris struggli…

Supposedly, all the Paris 2024 new accommodation were designed with re-usability for the general public after the Olympics. Is it possible that had an impact the swimming pool on design choices ? Put differently, are performance design at odd with more general/accessible design in the case of a swimming pool ?

Given the pool was put on top of a rugby pitch, which resulted in the shallower depth because they didn't want to destroy the pitch (a full depth pool would have weighed too much) - unlikely. The pool isn't a permanent structure, it's not going to remain there after the olympics are done.

I would be very surprised if they re-use it at all - an "above ground" pool of that size seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth to maintain over the long run.

A timelapse of the pool being put together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTuFidqy0yI

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#306
post #291
post #5

I was a college swimmer, qualified for Olympic Trials in 2012 and 2016. There are absolutely slow and fast pools. It basically comes down to two things: 1. The depth - which is only 7ft in Paris, unusually shallow for a competition pool. 2. The sides. Does the water spill over the sides into the gutters, or smash into a wall and bounce back, creating more chop. A trained eye can see all the swimmers in Paris struggli…

Supposedly, all the Paris 2024 new accommodation were designed with re-usability for the general public after the Olympics. Is it possible that had an impact the swimming pool on design choices ? Put differently, are performance design at odd with more general/accessible design in the case of a swimming pool ?

In this case, the pool is temporary. La Défense Arena is usually used for rugby (Racing 92) and concerts.

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#307
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paris Aquatic Centre -- Aquatics (water polo preliminaries, diving, artistic swimming) Why not have those events at a different temporary facility? Feels like they did not avoid building a white elephant... >Last Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the Olympic Aquatic Centre, but behind the flashes and smiles of the opening ceremony was a complex story that saw the budget increase by more than €115 mill…

https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/venues/aquatics-centre > From swimming lessons to recreational use and high-level competitions, the Aquatics Centre will be multifunctional. From July 2025, the Aquatics Centre will become a vast multi-sports facility open to all, including two pools (50m and 25m), a fitness area, bouldering area, paddle tennis section and pitches for team sports. It will also have an adjustable flo…

You don't need a 150 million Euro facility to teach swim lessons and recreational uses. As far as high level competitions...

>This capacity, which may be overlooked by many, is not for World Aquatics, which requires a minimum of 15,000 for top-level swimming events, so France will not be able to host a World Championships

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#308
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could probably increase fairness by doubling the width and throwing away the last few lanes (leaving them empty). But would that incentivize the edges? I don't know.

They could get almost perfect fairness in any kind of Olypmic-style race by just letting competitors all use exactly the same lane, one after another. In earlier times, measuring equipment wasn't accurate enough, so races had to be done in parallel with people starting at the same time. Today, that's no longer necessary. In fact, people racing one after another is exactly how we hand out world records. Of course, the…

There's something to be said for racing _someone_ and not just the clock, for the swimmers/racers, not even thinking about the audience.

Additionally, it would make races take 8x to 10x amount of time.

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are so few events where the conditions are exactly the same every 4 years. The Olympics used to be held at Olympia. It's not difficult to make the conditions the same every four years.

On that note, I should mention the idea of having a permanent Olympic city. Perhaps a new one. That way, there's no circus that goes around at great expense each time, and the Olympic city becomes a centre for sports science during the interim. Perhaps have separate summer and winter cities. Only drawback is the ioc doesn't get to choose a city every four years.

The circus is the point of the Olympic.

If there is no big event happening somewhere, the Olympic have no point. There are already permanent venues and international competitions happening for each of the sports of the Olympic.

Re: Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

#310
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they all change their behavior because they know the pool is less deep as they are used to. Some kind of placebo effect or fear of coming to close to the ground. Many athletes are superstitious.

When you measure human performance, placebo matters.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN