Thoughts on the Olympics
After Sarah's eminently successful "I survived grad school!" party, a few of us went to Jenny Taylor's to play in her pool and indulge in Phelpsmania.
On pools, I will readily admit to being a chlorine snob - I much prefer it to bromine and the other possible disinfectants. I love the smell of chlorination in the morning . . . Smelled like summer.
But I digress. We watched the woman's marathon, which turned into a race run by Romania, then a small country, then everybody else. It was impressive. And we watched the 100 meter dash - Bolt looked like he was walking the course while everybody else looked like they were running for dear life. Impressive.
And then swimming events. I was cheering for Ryan Cochrane in the 1500m freestyle. Because he's racing the event with a full head of hair. No cap, no shaved head. He's paying the drag penalty to keep his hair and he still came in third. That's a hell of a lot more impressive than somebody wrapped up in every innovation modern technology can give them.
TSlate had a snippet on some of the technological improvements in sports. Just for swimming, Beijing features the following "improvements:"
1. LZR Racer suit. It reduces friction (compared with skin) and is structurally designed to compress and streamline the body for maximum speed. Estimated drag reduction: 5 percent to 10 percent. Estimated average improvement in top swimmers' best times: 2 percent. Designed by NASA scientists and computers, among others. Cost: $500.
2. Pool depth. This is the deepest pool ever used in the Olympics. Depth disperses turbulence, reducing resistance.
3. Pool width and gutters. Two extra lanes at the margins disperse waves to gutters, reducing ricochet and resistance.
4. Lane dividers. The plastic ones in Beijing deflect turbulence down instead of sideways, reducing resistance.
5. Starting blocks. Nonskid versions have replaced the old wooden ones, boosting dive propulsion.
6. Video. Recordings and analysis identify target variables such as stroke distance and turns.
7. Medical tests. Swimmers are blood-tested after each race to measure lactic-acid buildup.
8. Sports scientists. They run the monitoring and analysis. The U.S. swim team has four.
Mix in some of the drastic advances in nutrition and metabolism (and probably legal drugs) you can give your Olympian, and we get to the point where how much of that record is true athletic performance, and how much is faked by modern technology? Is Phelps necessarily better than anybody else, and how many of the world records have been broken were the swimmers to race in a standard depth, standard width pool with old-style starting blocks and lane dividers, wearing old style suits? Or, for that matter, swimming with mustaches like Mark Spitz did? Are there any true amateur athletes left, or are they all "professionals" to some degree or another?
Not that it's going to stop me tuning in and watching the diving events tomorrow, or cheering for Matthew Mitcham. He's a cool kid.
But I do wonder if we've lost something in the new, tech-infused, superstar show Olympics.
On pools, I will readily admit to being a chlorine snob - I much prefer it to bromine and the other possible disinfectants. I love the smell of chlorination in the morning . . . Smelled like summer.
But I digress. We watched the woman's marathon, which turned into a race run by Romania, then a small country, then everybody else. It was impressive. And we watched the 100 meter dash - Bolt looked like he was walking the course while everybody else looked like they were running for dear life. Impressive.
And then swimming events. I was cheering for Ryan Cochrane in the 1500m freestyle. Because he's racing the event with a full head of hair. No cap, no shaved head. He's paying the drag penalty to keep his hair and he still came in third. That's a hell of a lot more impressive than somebody wrapped up in every innovation modern technology can give them.
TSlate had a snippet on some of the technological improvements in sports. Just for swimming, Beijing features the following "improvements:"
1. LZR Racer suit. It reduces friction (compared with skin) and is structurally designed to compress and streamline the body for maximum speed. Estimated drag reduction: 5 percent to 10 percent. Estimated average improvement in top swimmers' best times: 2 percent. Designed by NASA scientists and computers, among others. Cost: $500.
2. Pool depth. This is the deepest pool ever used in the Olympics. Depth disperses turbulence, reducing resistance.
3. Pool width and gutters. Two extra lanes at the margins disperse waves to gutters, reducing ricochet and resistance.
4. Lane dividers. The plastic ones in Beijing deflect turbulence down instead of sideways, reducing resistance.
5. Starting blocks. Nonskid versions have replaced the old wooden ones, boosting dive propulsion.
6. Video. Recordings and analysis identify target variables such as stroke distance and turns.
7. Medical tests. Swimmers are blood-tested after each race to measure lactic-acid buildup.
8. Sports scientists. They run the monitoring and analysis. The U.S. swim team has four.
Mix in some of the drastic advances in nutrition and metabolism (and probably legal drugs) you can give your Olympian, and we get to the point where how much of that record is true athletic performance, and how much is faked by modern technology? Is Phelps necessarily better than anybody else, and how many of the world records have been broken were the swimmers to race in a standard depth, standard width pool with old-style starting blocks and lane dividers, wearing old style suits? Or, for that matter, swimming with mustaches like Mark Spitz did? Are there any true amateur athletes left, or are they all "professionals" to some degree or another?
Not that it's going to stop me tuning in and watching the diving events tomorrow, or cheering for Matthew Mitcham. He's a cool kid.
But I do wonder if we've lost something in the new, tech-infused, superstar show Olympics.