Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records? • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by swores » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:07 PM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #83

croes wrote: 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.

There's Olympic gold medals on the line. People are going absolutely as hard as they can. There's no way an Olympic pool for the actual Olympics should be that shallow. If athletes prefer a deep pool, the pool should be deep. Swimming is one of the premier sports at Olympics. It's also a facility that has one of the most reuse if built properly. You don't think a Paris aquatic center wouldn't get tons of reuse in wor…

Placebo or fear can absolutely be a possibility regardless of how badly they want to do well because it's the Olympics.

Firstly, if a swimmer were to wrongly worry about hitting the floor even if there is 0% that any of their races ever saw them go as low as this floor, it could be in the back of their mind that going as low as they usually do might cause them problems and therefore seem logical to avoid.

Secondly, humans are not perfectly rational machines. Many a football (soccer for any Americans) player has come back from a nasty injury and found themselves unable to play as boldly as they used to, even though the odds of getting injured haven't changed just their perception of it.

I do agree that if the athletes feel it's needed then they should be listened to, just explaining that it's possible for both things to be true, that the depth doesn't create any physical problems yet still lead to changed behaviour from the swimmers.

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

#92

Post by mensetmanusman » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:09 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #78

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…

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!

There is an audible difference after being in a high temp high humidity environment for 5 years :)

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

#93

Post by Waterluvian » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:13 PM UTC

I hadn’t really considered the energy bouncing off and interfering swimmers. I was just imagining the plausibility given the limited science I know about water flow in a stream and cross sectionally how the furthest from edges (drag) will be fastest.

Which got me wondering if there’s any detectable correlation on record setting and what lane you’re in (closer to the side of the pool might be slower?)

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

#94

Post by Rayhem » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:17 PM UTC

MrPatan wrote: post #43

echoangle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being good at swimming doesn’t mean you can evaluate the pool performance better than everyone else. I trust someone running a CFD analysis of a pool more than a competitive Olympic swimmer when it comes to the effect of pool depth. It’s very hard to make accurate statistical assessments from intuition. Edit: maybe I’m not making myself clear: I don’t doubt they are slower in the current pool than they were before. B…

Intuition forms because it works. When it doesn't it's remarkable to the point of writing books and movies about it.

When it works we call it intuition. When it doesn't we call it superstition. There are all sorts of availability biases at work here; none of which really support the use of intuition as a valuable, predictive resource. After all, if your intuition fails to predict something, there must be some lurking variable somewhere that you failed to account for. Not that the intuition is wrong /s.

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

#95

Post by tanewishly » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

echoangle wrote: post #25

lou1306 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Being good at swimming doesn’t mean you can evaluate the pool performance better than everyone else. I trust someone running a CFD analysis of a pool more than a competitive Olympic swimmer when it comes to the effect of pool depth. It’s very hard to make accurate statistical assessments from intuition. Edit: maybe I’m not making myself clear: I don’t doubt they are slower in the current pool than they were before. B…

A CFD analysis is based on a model - an abstraction of reality. If the CFD analysis found everything is okay, yet reality shows it isn't, I wouldn't trust the competency of the person behind the analysis.

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

#96

Post by lacoolj » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

So it's more shallow, which is a problem. Like if you trained for track on pavement vs rubber vs sand, you're going to have different results, even if "everyone has the same environment" not everyone's body will have the same relative response. I don't like that assumption that just because it's the same for everyone means the difference will affect everyone the same.

Are France competition pools across the country just always that shallow? What are dimensions of the pools from the past 10-15 Olympics? Should this have been an established standard? (gonna say yes to that one)

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

#97

Post by tonymet » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

a good tech talk about the venue & technology and it's impact on olympic scores. tl;dr the surfaces and shoes likely account for 95% of the record breaking

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_...

As with any tech talk, think critically. Athletes train more vigorously, and have much better nutrition. Earlier athletes in the Olympics and Tour de France drank alcohol and smoked during performance.

It's still helpful to pay attention to the venues, like the swimming pools, tracks , wrestling mats etc. My verdict is that venue plays a big part, and records are not comparable from different venues.

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

#98

Post by echoangle » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:38 PM UTC

tanewishly wrote: post #95

echoangle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being good at swimming doesn’t mean you can evaluate the pool performance better than everyone else. I trust someone running a CFD analysis of a pool more than a competitive Olympic swimmer when it comes to the effect of pool depth. It’s very hard to make accurate statistical assessments from intuition. Edit: maybe I’m not making myself clear: I don’t doubt they are slower in the current pool than they were before. B…

A CFD analysis is based on a model - an abstraction of reality. If the CFD analysis found everything is okay, yet reality shows it isn't, I wouldn't trust the competency of the person behind the analysis.

But CFD didn’t say that everything is ok, it said that pool depth has a very small effect. So either CFD is wrong or something else is wrong with the pool that’s not depth.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:39 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by SoftTalker » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

ianburrell wrote: post #81

derbOac wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the article it notes thqt quote is coming from the company who built the pool. On some swimming forums competitors were complaining about the bidding process for the pool construction and giving a different opinion, noting that the depth is less than what was recommended by international standards bodies. There's also something about video equipment at the bottom of the pool? I'm not sure what to think,…

The Olympic swimming is held in temporary pools in an indoor arena. Temporary pools explain the shallow depth and high walls. It isn't construction problem but decision to not use permanent pool. Temporary pools seem to be thing recently. The US trials were held in one.

You can set up a temporary pool in a huge venue such as a football stadium and get higher attendance, or stated differently, you can accomodate a one-time need for that much spectator capacity for an event like the Olympics when you will never need that again in the lifetime of the facility.