wejo wrote:
Adam Peaty set a world record in the breast stroke in the 1st prelim.
He barely reacted.
This seems to happen regularly at the Olympics in swimming.
To me it makes the sport less interesting and shows it's not that competitive. Am I wrong? And can someone explain why it happens so often? You never see it in track.
It used to happen a lot I think when they would swim the 3/4 underwater or had the new suits but it still happens now without technological advances.
I'd not say it happens regularly, but it does happen for a lot of the reasons that some of the more knowledgeable posters have cited IE better technique, more stoke focused training, weights etc. Running tears your body up, running fast in the prelims takes away from the finals. In swimming one can exert close to maximal racing efforts several times in a day without the effects of bodyweight turning your muscles and connective tissue into mush. Tell me the 4 x 100 wasn't competitive, the US was not supposed to win, but did (Phelps streamlined the full allowed distance underwater on his turn thus avoiding the wake, which is what won it).Or the American taking the bronze in the 100 breast who was not supposed to...but did. When the full body speed suits came onto the market, there were a slew of WR's broken, then they were banned..........and the world records slowed to a crawl. Also, as one poster stated, swimmers peak one perhaps twice yearly, they are usually swimming tired which is why you rarely see WR's in routine competition. Also, you are now allowed one fly kick underwater on the breaststroke, which has made it faster. Also, contrary to what one poster had written, breaststroke does in fact have the highest energy cost of any of the strokes, butterfly included. Also, as both a former collegiate runner and swimmer, I can tell you that my hours in the pool were much tougher than my hours on the track. When I was running for SMTC I recall one training partner asking me how i could train so hard.........my response was.........."I'm a former swimmer, these workouts are quite a bit easier". No slap against runners, its just not possible to train at the intensity that swimmers do, given the bodyweight issues. Plus here are no easy days in swimming, every day is a hard day, some are just a bit easier hard days.
