Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?

I was a college swimmer, qualified for Olympic Trials in 2012 and 2016. There are absolutely slow and fast pools. It basically comes down to two things:

1. The depth - which is only 7ft in Paris, unusually shallow for a competition pool.

2. The sides. Does the water spill over the sides into the gutters, or smash into a wall and bounce back, creating more chop.

A trained eye can see all the swimmers in Paris struggling in their last 10-20 meters (heck, an untrained eye can spot some of these). Bummer that it makes the meet feel slow but at least it generally affects all the swimmers equally

The pool in Beijing was said to be fast (25 world records broken). But they were also using a now banned swimsuit. https://www.npr.org/2008/08/10/93478073/chinas-olympic-swimm...

Slow pools absolutely exist, as wave drag is the major impediment to speed and contributes about 55% of total drag. A shallower pool has more reflected wave energy in all directions. 2m is very shallow for a competition pool.

This paper does a decent job of modelling how swimmers move through water: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsif.201...

from the washington post version of this article, the winners are slower but everybody else is faster...

>But the “slow pool” theory does not hold up as well when one looks beyond the winning times. In fact, it appears a bit, ahem, shallow.

>When you consider the times it has taken to earn a spot in the finals in Paris — which is to say, the eighth-place times from either preliminary heats (in events 400 meters or longer) or semifinals — those times have been faster than in Fukuoka in 10 of the 12 events and faster than in Tokyo in five of 12. In the women’s 400 free, for example, it took a time of 4 minutes 3.83 seconds to make it into the final, faster than in Fukuoka (4:04.98) or Tokyo (4:04.07).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2024/07/30/pa...

So it's more shallow, which is a problem. Like if you trained for track on pavement vs rubber vs sand, you're going to have different results, even if "everyone has the same environment" not everyone's body will have the same relative response. I don't like that assumption that just because it's the same for everyone means the difference will affect everyone the same.

Are France competition pools across the country just always that shallow? What are dimensions of the pools from the past 10-15 Olympics? Should this have been an established standard? (gonna say yes to that one)

I wonder if there is some kind of mesh that you could put on the bottom of the pool to absorb the interior waves. Sort of like soundproofing in a recording studio.

There was a pretty strong world record tonight in the men’s 100 m freestyle of 46.40. Actually more than a second faster than the second place and beating the previous wr by 0.4 seconds.

>Could we have seen a sub-4 minute 400 IM by Marchand

Marchand beat the rest by more than 5 seconds in the end but basically "gave up" after 300 meters. Shoulda coulda woulda but he didn't need to push himself at all for the gold (his last split was the 2nd worst against everyone else).

We’ve just got a huge WR in the 100 men sprint by Pan Zhanle (just 19 years of age, the future is all his), I have no sympathy for those crying after WRs, maybe they’re not that good to begin with.

More generally, and talking about being good, it’s noticeable how the US, the biggest force in swimming, is going through a change of generations, as their only remaining star is Ledecky, who’s on her fourth Olympics. The Russians are also missing, they always used to have one or two super-stars ready to push the Americans to the limit (think Popov and Pankratov). The Aussies are doing a very fine job, and fair-play to them for that, but they’re also kind of not up to the highest levels in the men’s competition.

Years ago Johannesburg put in an Olympic bid. Because of the high altitude (1753m) they had issues affecting a number of disciplines when it came to records due to the thinner air...

If I recall correctly: - Javeline would go further (less air resistance) - High cardio events would go slower (less oxygen for athletes)

That would have been a "slow pool" factor all things being equal!

As we're probably familiar, dealing with an under spec computer for doing your job is frustrating. Even marginal differences in speed can be perceivable and lead to a growing dissatisfaction over time. I imagine these competitors face the same sort of frustration when dealing with a 'slow' swimming pool like this.

How is there not a standard regulation design

Do they make anechoic swimming pools that would absorb waves like acoustic anechoic chambers?

Well, if this is the case, then wouldn't a person who gets out to an early start have a tremendous advantage over the rest of the group since she'd be swimming largely without interference for the first length of the race while the trailers would have more turbulance? Also, I've never understood why there aren't more standards for Olympic tracks / pools / gear. For example, everyone should be required to train in and wear identical apparel when in a timed event like swimming so that nobody gets a technological advantage.

What I remember from the London Olympics is that records don’t fall from the sky, but venues can be planned/ optimised for them. Maybe this did not happen in Paris so much?

See this bit on the Velodrome in London: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/making-tracks-building-th...

I hadn’t really considered the energy bouncing off and interfering swimmers. I was just imagining the plausibility given the limited science I know about water flow in a stream and cross sectionally how the furthest from edges (drag) will be fastest.

Which got me wondering if there’s any detectable correlation on record setting and what lane you’re in (closer to the side of the pool might be slower?)

Feel like we should probably be looking deeper into the lack of doping (be it Chinese or otherwise) as probably a bigger factor here.

I'm fairly certain I read a thorough analysis linked on here a few years ago, about how there was a kind of draft/current in the pool used in the championship at the time. Some analysis determining that certain lanes were favorable or not.

But unable to locate it. Fairly certain it was Barcelona.

As a counterpoint to the Parisian pool being slow, China beat the world record in 100m free 10 minutes ago.

If this is a "slow" pool, then should we toss world records from "fast" pools? There are a lot of other events where factors affecting performance aren't completely controlled. Perhaps comparing records across different times and places is meaningless.

This is entirely just my own opinion...

I completely understand why you might not want a slow pool in a competition like this, but the emphasis on it being "not ideal for record setting" is weird to me. I guess I just don't understand the constant quest to set better and better records. Do we really always need to be hitting new world records? What's the point of that, why does that need to be a thing? If records like that are expected to be broken at every Olympics, what's the point of striving to break them if they're just going to be broken again?

Meh, I'll go back to yelling at clouds, I guess.

It's amusing that the day after this was published a monstrous world record beat occurred in the 100 m freestyle.

According to airparif.fr air quality is currently degraded in Paris, could air pollution be the culprit ?

It’s also not ideal to try setting a high jump record right after the Olympics in Mexico City. So what.

Honestly, my first reaction was "oh, they just stopped doping."

Good thing there's credible explanations about the differences in pools and how that effects swimming speed. Otherwise, I'd assume that no one wanted to "'fess up" to prior doping.

World records don’t matter in the Olympics. Medals go to those who show up and prevail.

Could the percentage of deuterium in the water be affecting the speed too?

In addition to physical issues raised (7ft depth, configuration of sides), I wonder if there might be any other reasons that aren't mentioned at all in the article…

Something causing these elite athletes to be a bit off their game? Whatever could it possibly be…

- https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2024/07/31/us...

- https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/team-gb-swimmer-m...

- https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/30/paris-...

- https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-10061397

Yup, no idea. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Has anything in the drug testing changed that can affect swimmers?

Chinese swimmer just broke the record, this article is nonsense.

a good tech talk about the venue & technology and it's impact on olympic scores. tl;dr the surfaces and shoes likely account for 95% of the record breaking

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_...

As with any tech talk, think critically. Athletes train more vigorously, and have much better nutrition. Earlier athletes in the Olympics and Tour de France drank alcohol and smoked during performance.

It's still helpful to pay attention to the venues, like the swimming pools, tracks , wrestling mats etc. My verdict is that venue plays a big part, and records are not comparable from different venues.

Finally an explanation for my hopelessness at childhood swimming lessons. It was a slow pool!

In perhaps the most Slate article ever, they attempt to blame the lack for record breaking Paris on (wait for it), Climate Change.

https://slate.com/technology/2024/07/paris-olympics-2024-bre...

Of course it's slower. CFD simulations would also prove that.

But maybe they wanted not to be too many world records be broken, to damage control the apparent doping problem.

You can easily see on TV now, who is doped and who's not. All the dopers do have dark purple faces after the swim, usually the middle swimmers from the US, GB, AUS, Ireland, F, China, whilst the non-dopers keep their usual skin color. Italy, Hungary, Germany, ... Some hormone effect probably with these rushes.