Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 5:35 PM By the numbers, swimming is becoming a joke
High-tech suit, massive muscles: even the French are wondering how sprinter Alain Bernard used that combination in his lastest record swim (AP / Claude Paris)
By Philip Hersh
British journalist Craig Lord, the conscience of swimming, has had plenty to say on swimnews.com about the latest bunch of world records and the swimsuits in which they were set.
(So have I, to wit this Blog: ``IOC must stop swimming from sinking in its leaders' stupidity.'')
Lord's Tuesday entry included a list that put the absurdity in nice numerical terms.
This list (below, with some comments from Lord) shows current world record in parentheses; the world record (and world-record holder) as of Feb. 1, 2008, just after the country abbreviation; and, in bold, the all-time performance ranking of the old world record as of Tuesday.
For example: in the 50 free, the record of 21.64 Popov held on Feb. 1, 2008, now is 25th fastest time on a list topped by 20.94.
``And remember,'' Lord wrote, `` this is the tip of an iceberg - what lies below is often even more crushing.''
High-tech suit, massive muscles: even the French are wondering how sprinter Alain Bernard used that combination in his lastest record swim (AP / Claude Paris)
By Philip Hersh
British journalist Craig Lord, the conscience of swimming, has had plenty to say on swimnews.com about the latest bunch of world records and the swimsuits in which they were set.
(So have I, to wit this Blog: ``IOC must stop swimming from sinking in its leaders' stupidity.'')
Lord's Tuesday entry included a list that put the absurdity in nice numerical terms.
This list (below, with some comments from Lord) shows current world record in parentheses; the world record (and world-record holder) as of Feb. 1, 2008, just after the country abbreviation; and, in bold, the all-time performance ranking of the old world record as of Tuesday.
For example: in the 50 free, the record of 21.64 Popov held on Feb. 1, 2008, now is 25th fastest time on a list topped by 20.94.
``And remember,'' Lord wrote, `` this is the tip of an iceberg - what lies below is often even more crushing.''
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