Old textile suits mean slow times
Source: Agencies |
March 19, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
OLYMPIC champion Stephanie Rice set the bar low when she was training in her Brisbane pool this past month for the Australian swim trials.
Out of her head were the blistering times she set while establishing individual medley world records - one since broken - and winning both gold medals over 200 and 400 IM distances at Beijing in 2008.
Instead, with the sleek full-length polyurethane suits that she and most elite swimmers wore in the last two years now banned by the sport's governing body and replaced by the traditional textile suits, Rice went back three years to establish a benchmark for her training times.
"I could only look to 2007, when I had just begun, to try to get a feel for where I was," Rice said.
The 21-year-old Australian is in good company at this week's Australian trials in Sydney for the Commonwealth Games and Pan-Pacific championships.
She will soon be joined by hundreds of other elite swimmers around the world as they experience the post-polyurethane blues: how to improve on the 255 world records set since early 2008 when the sleek suits were first handed out to swimmers.
The Australian championships in March 2008 - then the Olympic trials - were where records started falling.
Rice set two herself in her specialties.
And the meet being held this week at the Sydney Olympic pool is the first involving one of the top swim nations since the ban on the suits began on January 1: now it's shorts for men and shoulder-to-knee textile suits for women.
Brenton Rickard received a quick illustration of how much difference the suits meant to his world record-setting time in the Rome pool last year at the world championships - one of 43 set there.
Rickard broke the world 100-meter breaststroke mark with a time of 58.58 seconds. On Wednesday night, his time in qualifying first for yesterday's final at the Australian titles was 1:00.80 - nearly two seconds slower.
He improved on that time slightly - to 1:00.19 - in winning the final.
Out of her head were the blistering times she set while establishing individual medley world records - one since broken - and winning both gold medals over 200 and 400 IM distances at Beijing in 2008.
Instead, with the sleek full-length polyurethane suits that she and most elite swimmers wore in the last two years now banned by the sport's governing body and replaced by the traditional textile suits, Rice went back three years to establish a benchmark for her training times.
"I could only look to 2007, when I had just begun, to try to get a feel for where I was," Rice said.
The 21-year-old Australian is in good company at this week's Australian trials in Sydney for the Commonwealth Games and Pan-Pacific championships.
She will soon be joined by hundreds of other elite swimmers around the world as they experience the post-polyurethane blues: how to improve on the 255 world records set since early 2008 when the sleek suits were first handed out to swimmers.
The Australian championships in March 2008 - then the Olympic trials - were where records started falling.
Rice set two herself in her specialties.
And the meet being held this week at the Sydney Olympic pool is the first involving one of the top swim nations since the ban on the suits began on January 1: now it's shorts for men and shoulder-to-knee textile suits for women.
Brenton Rickard received a quick illustration of how much difference the suits meant to his world record-setting time in the Rome pool last year at the world championships - one of 43 set there.
Rickard broke the world 100-meter breaststroke mark with a time of 58.58 seconds. On Wednesday night, his time in qualifying first for yesterday's final at the Australian titles was 1:00.80 - nearly two seconds slower.
He improved on that time slightly - to 1:00.19 - in winning the final.
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