Since FINA announced on July 31, 2009 that swimming would be going back to minimal, textile jammers, swims have been compared to two different time standards: “World Records” and “Textile-Bests”. There has been a lot of conversation and opinion about what to do with times during the suited era. Some thought that they should be thrown out of the record-books altogether. Others thought that the two times should be listed on all results and start lists simultaneously (as the NCAA decided to do in 2010). Still others didn’t think that we should qualify World Records by the suits that they were swum in, because that wasn’t fair to the current athletes.
The generally-accepted compromises (though some have protested) has been to refer to both World Records and Textile Bests, though carefully worded not to refer to the latter as a true record, more like a historical time standard.
But now that we’ve seen that suit-tested World Records CAN go down, thanks to American Ryan Lochte’s phenomenal 1:54.00 in the men’s 200 IM, the thought has to enter our minds: when do we retire the use of the phrase “textile best”?
Right now, the two categories have 8 overlaps (between long course and short course) out of 82 recognized FINA pool-swimming records. 3 of those are in the more popular long course (Grant Hackett – men’s 1500 free, Kate Ziegler – Women’s 800 free, Ryan Lochte – Men’s 200 IM), and 5 are in short course (Ryan Lochte – 200, 400 IM, Russia – Men’s 800 free relay, Grant Hackett – Men’s 1500 free, China – Women’s 800 free relay).
If you take it a step deeper, over 100 National Records have gone down through 5 days at this meet. Some are more significant (Dana Vollmer, USA, 100 fly) than others (Nabil Kebab, Algeria, 50 free), but plenty of big records have gone down in major swimming nations that certainly had stars swim through the rubber-suit era. So the marks certainly aren’t untouchable.
But here’s the real reason why we might need to consider the merge sooner rather than later, and it has nothing to do with actual records broken. Out of 22 finals competed so far, 19 of them have had faster winning times than the 2007 World Championships, which was the last international championship swum in textile.
(Note: the three exceptions are all from some of the meet’s top performers – Federica Pellegrini in the 200 free, and Michael Phelps in both the 200 free and 200 fly.)
What that says is that swimming is getting faster, be it in jammers, textile body-suits, or polyurethane boats. During the rubber-suit era of 2008 and 2009, I don’t think it be unfair to speculate that as many as half of the existing long course World Records would have been broken anyways.
To say that Aaron Peirsol wouldn’t have improved at all off of his 52.98 100 backstroke World Record set in March of 2007, even in textile, would be a surprise. Either Natalie Coughlin’s 59.44 in the 100 backstroke or Lin Yang’s 28.09 in the 50 backstroke surely would have gone down, as those 2007 World Records were surpassed 7-times in the 7-months after the suit ban was put in place.
The bigger case comes if we look at textile-bests that still stand as the 2007 World Records. Take Michael Phelps in the 200 free, 200 fly, and 400 IM. In his 8 gold medal haul at the Beijing Olympics, where he was swimming at a level we’ve never seen before, he certainly would have bettered the textile-best in one of those races. It seems as though there are swims that are not receiving their fair due, simply because they were swum in polyurethane.
The issue will become more complicated in 2013, when it sounds like FINA is leaning towards a return to full-body textile suits following the Olympics. Then do we track textile-bests, jammer bests, pre-2008 bests, and World Records?
It’s not time yet to retire the textile-bests. But how many more World Records are we going to wait for? 10 more? When we hit 50% of the total records? When all textile-bests have moved within a second of the World Records? Maybe after the 2012 Olympics would make for a clean break, or if/when FINA allows textile body-suits back into the mix. What are your thoughts, when should the phrase “textile-best” be retired?
By the way, the 400 IM WR is not “soft”, and if Lochte can break it, it will show indeed that it is the man not the suit.
That’s why I put “soft” in quote.
It’s because it’s reasonable that Lochte and Phelps to swim the time without the suit, and if you all read WR prediction list discussion in this site or any other sites, you would have known that people did expect the 200 IM WR to be broken, along with women 200 breast, and men 1500.
I would also call those two other WRs as “soft” in relation to other WRs and which are vulnerable.
Otherwise, we might as well not having any discussion about which WR might fall.
To me, the reason the 200 IM record appears “soft” is because it is reasonable for Phelps and Lochte to be there. They were both on a gradual and consistent improvement curve in that event before, during, and after the suit-era, and they both swam in LZRs which appear to have had a lesser impact on performance. Most of the other WRs set were taken to another stratosphere by pretty good swimmers who essentially gained superstar status in one season.
So the men’s 200 IM is kind of a unique situation. If Missy Franklin breaks the 200 back WR (which I still might be just out of reach) that would be a HUGE deal in my opinion. It was Egerzegi’s… Read more »
“soft”? before the Phelps era, the WR in the 200IM was 1:58, and it was considered one of the toughest WR records. It stood for 9 years.
Yes, Phelps was close to 1:54 in textile, prior to the suit era, but it’s a bit of an overstatement to call 1:54 a soft record.
In the euphoria of Lochte’s WR, I don’t think many people realize that men 200 IM suit record was “soft” and Phelps already swam close to it pre suit and that most suited WRs are still ridiculous.
Let’s reopen this discussion by the end of Worlds when we finally see how many WRs broken at this meet.
*no one could know
I think we should just cut all swims from ’08/’09 from the record books. I realise this is far from ideal, but that was the terrible thing about the techsuit era: many of the greatest swimmers ever were producing the swims of their lives and could know the exact value of the swims. We’ll never know exactly how good those swims were and there’s nothing we can do about it now.
Grrrr..I curse FINA and the suit manufacturers for ever opening this Pandora’s box, that had nothing to do with the sport of swimming and everything to do with how much money both groups could line their pockets with. And now those two are trying to slowly creep it back again.
I think the rubber suit “records” should be invalidated, but that’s just me. Performance enhancing drugs, performance enhancing suit technology, is there really a difference? Either way it’s an artificial boost to the capability of the human body. I mean look, even jammers provide an artificial enhancement to the body through muscle compression. We all know this is true, if it wasn’t, why then does everyone wear them? I know… Read more »