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Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

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

#71

Post by drdeca »

chatmasta wrote: post #69
esperent wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the qualifying rounds determine whether you get to compete or not? So if someone intentionally slowed down, even a fraction of a second, there's a chance they wouldn't get to compete at all.

Yeah, but it would create weird incentives where e.g. if two people are way ahead of the pack, one of them wants to finish after the other. So do they just wait until the rest of the field catches up and then try to trick the other guy into hitting the wall first? Better to just avoid it by keeping incentives aligned with winning your qualifying heat.

Or they could randomize the order?

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

#72

Post by chatmasta »

drdeca wrote: post #71
chatmasta wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it would create weird incentives where e.g. if two people are way ahead of the pack, one of them wants to finish after the other. So do they just wait until the rest of the field catches up and then try to trick the other guy into hitting the wall first? Better to just avoid it by keeping incentives aligned with winning your qualifying heat.

Or they could randomize the order?

Good point. Some events do in fact do that.

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

#73

Post by legitster »

dist-epoch wrote: post #38
hgomersall wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly, that's why the fastest qualifiers get the middle lanes.

[flagged]

Not sure if you are being satirical, but yes that's the point.

The entire point of qualifiers in most sports is to reward better participants - otherwise they would have incentive to sandbag their performance or perform other shenanigans for preferential matchups.

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

#74

Post by freejazz »

echoangle wrote: post #39
_heimdall wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't necessarily need to do an in depth study of the pool when every Olympic swimmer in it fails to meet their own personal records. A study may be useful to understand why depth still matters beyond the 2m point, but a study isn't needed to show that swimmer performance is impacted.

Or maybe there’s something else going on? There are a lot of other variables in a pool except depth, no? Maybe water tension, density, viscosity? Someone else mentioned the walls of the pool also influencing the wave properties in the pool. Just noticing the pool being more shallow and people swimming slower doesn’t mean that’s the reason.

So to be clear, you have no idea, you just insist on discounting the experiences of the swimmers because you can?

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

#75

Post by Gud »

teddyh wrote: post #67
dsr_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange that you would pick on gold connectors. Gold is an excellent conductor and does not corrode in air, so it makes a great plating material. In the quantities needed for plating, it's not too expensive, either. Silver corrodes relatively quickly and is expensive; that's a bad tradeoff against copper, which is much cheaper and nearly as conductive. So: gold-plated connectors on copper wires are extremely com…

> Gold is an excellent conductor Actually, gold is a worse conductor than both copper and silver, and only a little better than aluminum. > and does not corrode in air This is the real reason for plating contacts in gold. But gold wires would be a bad idea, since they would be worse than both copper and silver wires.

Parent didn’t say gold was a better conductor than silver or copper though. How does gold compare to copper- or silver oxide? Which was the point parent was making.

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

#77

Post by teddyh »

Gud wrote: post #75
teddyh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold is an excellent conductor Actually, gold is a worse conductor than both copper and silver, and only a little better than aluminum. > and does not corrode in air This is the real reason for plating contacts in gold. But gold wires would be a bad idea, since they would be worse than both copper and silver wires.

Parent didn’t say gold was a better conductor than silver or copper though. How does gold compare to copper- or silver oxide? Which was the point parent was making.

The text was unclear; perhaps they did not believe that gold is a superior conductor to copper and silver. But in my experience, many people do think that, and I thought it would be useful to point out that this is not true.

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

#78

Post by viraptor »

dsr_ wrote: post #53
viraptor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are the worldwide foremost experts on competitive swimming On swimming, sure. But not fluid dynamics. It's a bit like music listeners shouldn't be treated as experts on music quality, or you'll get the audiophile nuts who need gold connectors. Some combination of personal experience for comfort and objective measurements for performance would be much better.

It's strange that you would pick on gold connectors. Gold is an excellent conductor and does not corrode in air, so it makes a great plating material. In the quantities needed for plating, it's not too expensive, either. Silver corrodes relatively quickly and is expensive; that's a bad tradeoff against copper, which is much cheaper and nearly as conductive. So: gold-plated connectors on copper wires are extremely com…

Picking on it exactly because there's no difference in sound, but the extreme audiophiles will claim they hear it anyway. https://ventiontech.com/products/toslink-to-mini-toslink-opt... - "gold-plated connectors resist corrosion for optimal signal transfer over time." - it's an optical cable!

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

#79

Post by _heimdall »

freejazz wrote: post #74
echoangle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe there’s something else going on? There are a lot of other variables in a pool except depth, no? Maybe water tension, density, viscosity? Someone else mentioned the walls of the pool also influencing the wave properties in the pool. Just noticing the pool being more shallow and people swimming slower doesn’t mean that’s the reason.

So to be clear, you have no idea, you just insist on discounting the experiences of the swimmers because you can?

I misread the earlier posts here when I started dow this comment path, but I actually agree with them. There seems great evidence, including the swimmers', experience to say that something about the pool slows them down. It seems less clear that the depth is the issue, it could be something else or a combination of factors related to the pool that cause it.

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

#80

Post by croes »

lou1306 wrote: post #23
croes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of this is perception vs. reality,” he said. “If you were to talk to many very accomplished coaches, they would say the pool has to be a minimum 3 meters deep. Most of our research shows that anything over 2 meters is frivolous. … Obviously, some depth is very important. But after a certain point, it's diminishing return. Maybe it's just the swimmers and not the pool as such

But a lot of the swimmers themselves are not able to go anywhere near their personal bests: this is a sharp reversal from past Olympics, where many athletes reached new personal records. Plus, they are the worldwide foremost experts on competitive swimming. Definitely I would be more interested in their evaluation of a swimming pool rather than trust "research results" from the company that built the pool in question…

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.

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