Why do are world records broken so often in swimming?

This has been discussed before. The general consensus is that swimming records are broken so often is because every race, every athlete is going all out because they aren't able to pay as much attention as to where their competitors are.

Track records aren't broken often enough because runners are usually going for the win instead of going for a world record time.

sorry for the grammar mistakes

land>water wrote:

It seems like world records are not even that big of a deal in swimming. In every olympics, world championships, and national race multiple records at 6. At the Olympic trials, American records are always broken. I also don't get why swimmers can be so good so young. Katie Ledecky was 15 years old in London and just missed the WR!! Not sure how all of this varies between the sprint and distance swimming events...

It's a huge deal in track when 1 world record is broken at the Olympics.

In virtually every race, swimmers are giving a 100% or near-100% effort to either go for the win or make it into the finals. Even if they're not going all out in the heats or qualifying rounds of major competitions, they'll still be giving a 95% or so effort, or else they won't qualify. In the finals, every swimmer present will be going full throttle. Tactics like "sit and kick" don't work, because you can't SEE the majority of your competitors, and even if you can, they're next to you as opposed to directly in front or behind you.

Take for example the 400 m Freestyle, which is probably the race most comparable to the 1500m on the track. In the heats, Park Tae-Hwan, swam a 3:46 to qualify, which was 5 seconds off his PB, and landed him 4th place in the rounds. During the finals, he swam a 3:42 for the silver medal, only 1 second off his PB. Notably, the World Record at this time was only 3:40.07.

In the same race Sun Yang of China swam a 3:45 to qualify for the finals, which was only 3 seconds off his PB. In the finals, he actually broke his PB with a 3:40.14, and was only .07 seconds off the World Record.

Even in a near 4-minute long race during the qualifying rounds, a swimmer cannot be more than several seconds off their Season-Bests or PRs and hope to do well. Virtually EVERY qualifying swimmer was within 7 seconds of the World Record in just the qualifying rounds.

This is in very hard contrast to races on the track. For instance, in the 1500m, lets take a look at Silas Kiplagat at Worlds in 2011. His Season Best was a 3:30. He ran a semifinal heat for qualification in 3:46, and took silver with what was virtually a 3:36. He was 16 seconds off his PB in semis, and still 6 seconds off his PB in the finals.

Likewise, Asbel Kiprop had a 3:28 PR, ran the first qualifying round in 3:41, ran the semis in 3:36, and won the finals in 3:35. He was 13 seconds off his PB in the first round, 8 seconds off in the semis, and 7 seconds off in the finals.

Runners can get away with what are essentially crap-tastic times in the heats because virtually every competitor is also holding back in order to conserve energy for the finals. Swimmers can't. If a swimmer was 13-16 seconds off his or her PB in the qualifying rounds of a 400m race, he or she wouldn't even have a prayer of making the finals.

nature of the race wrote:

This has been discussed before. The general consensus is that swimming records are broken so often is because every race, every athlete is going all out because they aren't able to pay as much attention as to where their competitors are.

Track records aren't broken often enough because runners are usually going for the win instead of going for a world record time.

Nonsense, there is no such consensus.

The reason swimmers set more records is rabbits are not allowed.

Whether they can see the rabbits is irrelevant, what matters is they could draft from the rabbits. That's how rabbits benefit running records too. A rabbit more than a few meters ahead is useless. It's the drafting that matters, not the "pacesetting."

Now that track has refined its rabbit system over several decades, it is almost impossible to set world records in any non-rabbited event.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Nonsense, there is no such consensus.

The reason swimmers set more records is rabbits are not allowed.

Whether they can see the rabbits is irrelevant, what matters is they could draft from the rabbits. That's how rabbits benefit running records too. A rabbit more than a few meters ahead is useless. It's the drafting that matters, not the "pacesetting."

Now that track has refined its rabbit system over several decades, it is almost impossible to set world records in any non-rabbited event.

David Rudisha

Aside from the suits used a few years back, the engineering of pools can improve performance times.

Technique and biomechanical studies can be huge improvements.

============================================================

There is something missing in your analysis? I don't think what you say explains the results. I have wondered about this for many years.

I suspect it's more about fewer athletes competing at a very high level in swimming?

Having multiple strokes for the same distance also helps pad the numbers.

It'd be like having the track 100m run any way you want; plus the 100m run backwards; plus the 100m run hopping on one leg.

Smaller pool of participants (no pun intended) helps limit the crazy completely-out-of-reach-ahead-of-their-time world records (like Coe's 1:41). With swimmers mostly being rich white people, there's a slimmer probability of coming across outliers who can completely dominate (Even Phelps/Lochte have suffered a huge number of losses).

The lower participation results in more parity and makes reaching the highest level easier. In running today, a high schooler making the Olympics would be nearly unthinkable, but Gerry Lindgren was able to do so back in the 60s before the East Africans really came onto the scene and upped the sport's competitiveness. Swimming as a sport hasn't been a "bigger" sport long enough for there to be the level of specialization you see in running today. Consider Phelps' 8 golds versus Zatopek's 3 golds in 1952—running has advanced so much and training has gotten so technical that no runner could hope to dominate like that today. Perhaps one day swimming will become equally specialized.

I said almost impossible.

I read this thread, and the other one before commenting.

Interesting discussion re:rabbits and %difference between WR efforts in swimming and track.

Anyways we're missing that the rules and what constitutes a legal stroke have improved to the benefit of the modern swimmer, specifically the fifth stroke: underwater butterfly. It's made every stroke other than breastroke faster. Every single stroke has been broken down by video analysis and efficiencies tailored to individual top ranked swimmers identified. If spitz had this advantage he'd be right there with modern athletes.

We've also had the rise as mentioned of the physically large swimmer in all events outside of breastroke (filled with weirdos, as always still), eg 6'4" and a big ape index gets you in the game nowadays.

Technique and the very strokes themselves have been improved. To a lessor extent training has improved as well--no longer are athletes being tortured with 140k meter weeks

Another thing to consider is the fact that swimming takes less of a toll on the body than running due to less impact. That's why swimmers can do multiple events, and go nearly all-out in each preliminary round and final. But this seems impossible to do with running - can you imagine trying to run 3 all-out 1500's in 4-5 days? Even if this did happen, people would be bound to just get slower by the final race, making the final anti-climactic.

What % of the world's population, esp those cultures really good at aerobic sports (looking at you Africa), has access to a pool. Let alone a lap pool. Let alone swimming competitions.

The limited access means less participants, so when a good athlete like phelps comes along, he can smash.

It doesn't appear that there is a continent of high-potential athletes in swimming waiting to be discovered. Nothing about east Africans will lead to success in the pool. West Africans may be another matter, eg Cullen jones

Running Impact wrote:

Another thing to consider is the fact that swimming takes less of a toll on the body than running due to less impact. That's why swimmers can do multiple events, and go nearly all-out in each preliminary round and final. But this seems impossible to do with running - can you imagine trying to run 3 all-out 1500's in 4-5 days? Even if this did happen, people would be bound to just get slower by the final race, making the final anti-climactic.

Unique to Phelps, there was apparently a study that confirmed he produced half the lactic acid of his competitors.

Does anyone actually have information on this "study"? If it's actually valid, it would probably explain why he's able to succeed in so many events. Swimming is indeed less stressful on the body compared to running, but even so, no swimmer manages to endure the number of preliminary and finals events that Phelps does. Even during the height of the drug-dominated era against the Soviets, this was unheard of.

Katie ledecky is not that good at swimming

The short answer is swimming records are softer. There can be no other real answer if records are so frequently broke. It's not like humans are evolving in front of our eyes. We're constantly getting better at the swimming events and destroying records that just a few years old.