China's Ye Shiwen swims to a first place finish during her women's 200-metre individual medley heat at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on Tuesday.DAVID GRAY/Reuters
As the doping accusations envelop Chinese swimming sensation Ye Shiwen, the winner of two gold medals so far in the London Olympics, it is worth remembering that swimming is one sport where records are broken all the time, unlike most other sports.
Indeed, world records set by swimmers in the 1960s and the 1970s, even some in the 1980s, would seem dead slow today. The point being, it shouldn't be surprising when an extraordinary swimmer posts an extraordinary time.
Ye, who is 16, was so fast in the 50 metres and 400 metres medley that her time was quicker than gold medalist Ryan Lochte over the same leg. The apparently superhuman performance was "unbelievable" and "disturbing," according to American swim coach John Leonard. Cue the doping accusations (Ye denied the accusations and the IOC said she passed a doping test).
But swimmers routinely post "unbelievable" times compared to other sports. John D. Barrow, professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University, all-round sports nut and author of the new book 100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know About Sport, has a chapter on swimming records.
In 1964, he notes, the world record for the 100-metre freestyle was 52.9 seconds for men and 58.9 seconds for women. At the time of the book's publication earlier this year, record was 46.91 seconds and 52.09 seconds, respectively. For the men, that translates into an 11.34 per cent gain over that time period.
"The top women are swimming faster than the men's Olympic champion of 1964, and a superstar of the sport like Mark Spitz, who swam a world record of 51.22 [seconds] when swimming one of his eight gold medals at the Munich games in 1972, wouldn't even qualify for the U.S. Olympic trials today," Barrow wrote.
Now compare this to track. In the 400-metre run (a race that lasts roughly as long as the 100-metre freestyle) the 1964 world record was 44.9 seconds for men and 51 seconds for women. Today, those record times have advanced to 43.18 seconds and 47.6 seconds, respectively. Do the math. The gain for the men is a mere 3.8 per cent. That's insignificant compared to the swim speed gains.
So how do you explain that?
Barrow credits the huge advances in swim strokes, to make them highly efficient, coupled with the reduction in a swimmer's drag through the use of long, underwater dolphin kicks, among other things. In essence, it's all about fluid dynamics and the computers and imaging that go along with it. Today, swim strokes are designed with the same technological sophistication as the hulls on racing yachts.
Ye, the Chinese swimmer, may have made that technological stroke leap, as much as the American swim coach may not believe that. In a decade or two, her times may look slow.