Suspicious Chinese Swimmer

She was 25 seconds slower than him for the entire distance. What's the problem?

She's legit. Sun Yang China 1500meters, I see a world record.

That would be like a female 1500 runner closing as fast as Kiprop could - say around 52?

If a female miler closed in 52 I would very suspicious, no matter what her overall time was.

agip wrote:

That would be like a female 1500 runner closing as fast as Kiprop could - say around 52?

If a female miler closed in 52 I would very suspicious, no matter what her overall time was.

No it wouldn't. Kiprop wouldn't run 52 after blasting the first three laps. Compare like with like.

I know this is an American board, but I still expected someone to point out that an American boy broke a swimming world record aged 15.

Which population would you expect to have the more outliers, the USA or China? And which would have the more extreme outliers?

Which population would you expect to have the more outliers, the USA or Kenya? And which would have the more extreme outliers?

and dont try to say its apples to oranges. its more similar of a comparison than you think

pherekydes wrote:

agip wrote:

That would be like a female 1500 runner closing as fast as Kiprop could - say around 52?

If a female miler closed in 52 I would very suspicious, no matter what her overall time was.

No it wouldn't. Kiprop wouldn't run 52 after blasting the first three laps. Compare like with like.

I know this is an American board, but I still expected someone to point out that an American boy broke a swimming world record aged 15.

Which population would you expect to have the more outliers, the USA or China? And which would have the more extreme outliers?

Ok, let's say we compare it to a world class miler who knocks out the first 3 laps at a fast pace. They still close in 55-56. No woman can do that.

However, in comparing like with like, we have to acknowledge that technique plays a significantly larger role in swimming than in running, and therefore it's possible for a woman to be closer to a man if she has superior technique. Running is much more dependent on physical limitations (heart size volume/stroke, lung capacity/ O2 consumption, and muscle strength). You don't see many female runners (or swimmers for that matter) who are on par with men in terms of physiology.

cenotaph wrote:

Which population would you expect to have the more outliers, the USA or Kenya? And which would have the more extreme outliers?

and dont try to say its apples to oranges. its more similar of a comparison than you think

Obviously the USA would have the more outliers. However, most, if not nearly all, of Kenya's outliers participate in just one aspect of just one sport.

I don't know, the Chinese in general are pretty small. I wouldn't expect them to have a ton of athletic outliers. Why is it that China is so terrible in men's running?

comparing swimming to running is a bit odd. After all, overcoming the resistance of water, which is closely related the swimmer's body size, is much a bigger part in deciding the swimming speed than overcoming the air resistance in running speed.(we may say you propel yourself forward against the water when swimming, but in running you propel yourself against the ground, not the air.) Thinking along this line, it's a lot easier for a top female swimmer to get closer to a top male swimmer's performance in the last lap than a top female runner to a male counterpart, especially when the male swimmer was already quite exhausted in the previous laps.

well, running is against gravity. Swimming is not (gravity is totally neutralized by buoyancy). Technique is a lot more important in swimming.

What are you talking about? Kiprop jogged a 53 second last lap in Monaco after blazing the first 3 laps.If he had actually tried and had someone pushing him he could have probably closed in 50-51.

I'd say technique is about equally important in both. There's not a whole lot of wasted motion in elite runners' strides. Meanwhile, there's still debate about what the optimal way to swim is.

you clearly don't know anything about swimming if you think that technique is just as important in running. technique is a massive component of swimming, which is why you could have a super fit person, say lebron james or lagat, try and swim and watch them flail away with horrible form and speed. that is not the case with running.

Better nutrition has paid off in China and there are a lot of BIG athletes now. But this performance is off the charts. And off the charts = PED.

I would bet most of these swimmers are on PEDs.

Except the Americans of course. I mean, Lochte is a nice white boy who skateboards and he even played beer pong with LetsRun posters. Nothing to see here!

You clearly don't know anything about running if you think stride technique isn't massively important. Thats why you can take world class endurance athletes like Lance Armstrong and put him in a marathon and watch him fail.

It's really hard to compare these two races... Lochte's fastest split wasn't even his freestyle. His fly split was somewhere around 57. All his splits were more even than Shiwen's, whose free split was 4 seconds faster. Anyway, Lochte went out like a beast, well ahead of WR pace, and couldn't hold on, nor did he need to because he was so far ahead. Shiwen was coming off a 1:18 breaststroke split.

pherekydes wrote:

agip wrote:

That would be like a female 1500 runner closing as fast as Kiprop could - say around 52?

If a female miler closed in 52 I would very suspicious, no matter what her overall time was.

No it wouldn't. Kiprop wouldn't run 52 after blasting the first three laps. Compare like with like.

I know this is an American board, but I still expected someone to point out that an American boy broke a swimming world record aged 15.

Which population would you expect to have the more outliers, the USA or China? And which would have the more extreme outliers?

Age is not what is at issue. If you follow swimming you know that while 15 is certainly precocious its not unheard of. The question is how do you explain a female putting up the same time as a male even given the difference in overall time.

Also its not as if Lochte struggles with the freestyle he's a serious contender in the 200 tonight.

Lagat would do about as well in a pool as Phelps would do in track. I wonder how many swimmers wouldn't get lapped by Lagat in a 1500?

If you think technique isn't massively important in running, you don't know what's up.