Beijing 2008 News Flash: Liu Xiang out with injury

Face of Beijing games out with apparent Achilles injury

Perhaps the first big shock at this year's Olympic Games comes not from a major contender testing positive for a banned substance, but instead in the form of Liu Xiang pulling out of competition even before his qualifying heat in the 110 m hurdles.

At the end of 2007 we did a fun post in the year that was in running. In it we dished out some "awards," one of which was the "Losing sleep over the future" award, and it went to Chinese hurdler and poster boy of the Olympic Games Liu Xiang. How would you like 1.3 billion countrymen and women expecting you to make the nation proud and defend your Olympic title, which by the way also happened to be China's first ever gold medal in Athletics? Well, that was what Liu was up against.

To add to his pressure the fact that young and rising Cuban star Dayron Robles broke Xiang's world record earlier this year. Xiang's form was questionable this summer, which is not necessarily a bad thing---there is such a thing as peaking too early---but one must wonder if the pressure just continued to mount as the games approached, and whether or not deep down it had anything to do with his injury.

We have no details now on the exact nature of his injury. The live images late Sunday night showed Xiang sitting down with his right Achilles/ankle propped up on a bag of ice. All we now is that he lined up for his heat, clearly in pain during the warm up and while getting in to the blocks. There was a false start, and Xiang did not even make it to the first hurdle without pulling up and then promptly removing the numbers attached to his legs. He then exited the stadium, taking the hopes and dreams of many Chinese with him---even though China has performed exceptionally well thus far in numerous events.

Robles clear favorite in 110 m hurdles

While we wish injury upon no one, the sigh of relief you heard on Sunday night was Dayron Robles when he heard the news that Xiang had pulled out, as this makes him a clear favorite for the gold. Interestingly, it also continues the trend of shake ups at the games this year. It started with Tyson Gay not qualifying for the 100 m finals, and then Asafa Powell not even featuring in that event (ok, perhaps that was not so surprising!) It continued with hot 1500 m favorite Bernard Lagat failing to qualify for the final in that event by a scant 0.02 s (he failed to make the top five in his semi-final).

So it has been an exciting start to the athletics competition this year, but not so much for the performances to date but for the attrition of favorites!

Jonathan

Beijing 2008: Men's 100 m Fly

Spitz is equalled: Phelps finds 0.62 s in 50 m to steal seventh gold

1/100th of a second. Such are the margins in the Olympic Games. And such was the difference between Michael Phelps winning his seventh gold, and claiming a silver in the 100m Butterfly. In one of the most incredible swimming races you'll ever see, Phelps was behind for 99.95 m of a 100m race, and managed, in the final 5cm, to jump ahead of Milorad Cavic of Serbia to equal Mark Spitz's performance from the 1972 Munich Olympics, and won his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Games.

The 100m Butterfly - Phelps' toughest challenge

Phelps was up against not only world-record holder and teammate Ian Crocker, but also Serbia's Milorad Cavic, who actually had the fastest qualifying time and therefore lined up in the coveted Lane 4. Phelps was right next to him in Lane 5. The tension was high, even watching on television. I had to wonder, "Would he crumble under the immense pressure?" I was waiting for a false start or similar error that would alleviate the pressure of trying to win the race---or avoid the disappointment of potentially losing.

It was a clean start, however, but Cavic was firing down the pool towards the first turn. Before the turn this was not necessarily a reason for Phelps fans to worry. After all, one of his biggest advantages seems to be his turns, and he always seems to come out ahead especially after the final turn of a race. Cavic blitzed the first 50m, turning first, but Phelps was a distant 0.64 s behind. The turn failed to narrow that gap significantly, as for once, Phelps did not produce one of his trademark turns, and this time it was Cavic who surfaced ahead of Phelps! And not just by a hair, but he appeared to have a commanding lead.

The finish - a fingertip, or less...

But surely Phelps would catch him down the stretch? At 25 m to go, Cavic was holding off Phelps and steaming ahead on his was to becoming the spolier. Even closer to the wall, Phelps was clawing his way back but it honestly did not look as though he had enough water to do it. And in the final stroke, Cavic made a telling error as he lunged for the wall a fraction early. As a result, Cavic reached for the wall under water, whereas Phelps managed to put in one more powerful stroke, ABOVE the water.

That made the difference, and while to the naked eye, it was too close to call, the electronic touch pad and timing system registered Phelps as the winner by a mere 0.01 s! If you view the slow-motion replay, you'll see how Cavic was gliding to the wall, under the water, and was perhaps 10cm from the touch, when Phelps made his final stroke. The slow-motion reveals how the gap, which must have been 20cm, was narrowed and then surpassed by Phelps - one stroke above the water, and 1/100th of a second, and Phelps took the lead in the final 5cm of the race!

You can do the math to work out how close that was---less than the length of finger tip, maybe?---but no matter how you count it, it was amazingly close.

But it ain't over until the Serbian woman sings

Shortly after the finish, however, Cavic and his coach filed a protest, that Cavic had in fact touched the wall, but with insufficient force to trigger the electronic timer. The protest went to a FINA committee and they made a expeditious ruling on it and upheld the result. Phelps kept gold and Cavic took silver.

When you're hot, you're hot

It is inexplicable how Phelps eked out the win. He was 0.64 s behind at halfway, and he did not appear to make up much time upon surfacing after the turn. Which effectively means that he pulled back the time over the remaining 35 m as they can stay underwater for no more than 15 m after the turn. Clearly Cavic was slowing down, as is the normal pacing strategy for his event - all the competitors swim a positive split.

Which brings us to the conclusion that perhaps it is just Phelps' time, and somehow luck is on his side so that in a race as close as this one, he comes out ahead although by the smallest of margins. This is actually a really interesting point about sporting performance, as we simply cannot explain these kinds of situations. Clearly the two athletes are matched closely in ability, motivation and fitness, yet the obvious statement is that only one of them can win. How do we know which one it will be? In races like these, the answer to that question remains a mystery.

Making a habit of close 100 m fly finishes?

So Phelps managed to squeak by Cavic by 0.01 s in Beijing this year, but if we turn back the clock and go to Athens four years ago, we see a similar race. The only difference was that instead of Cavic who came out firing and as leading at 50 m, it was Phelps' teammate (and world record-holder) Ian Crocker who surfaced after the turn with at least half a body length on Phelps. Again it came right down to the last five meters, and Phelps prevailed only by 0.04 s to take gold in Athens:



Beware the mythological physiology

One thing that we can be sure of though, is that as sports fans we must be careful not to portray Phelps as being a physiological superman. We saw this happen with Lance Armstrong where sports pundits and even Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin kept the myth alive by gushing about Armstrong's larger than normal heart, bigger than normal lungs, lower than normal lacate concentrations, and his remarkable weight loss after cancer. None of these characteristics were ever measured or proven, and in fact his "remarkable weight loss" was disproven in a scientific paper in which his weight was measured yearly both pre- and post-cancer, revealing that actually he weighed slightly more post-cancer.

The reality is that the usual explanations are completely unable to explain why one athlete is dominant - when you put these athletes in a lab, there is NOTHING that can be measured that proves why one athlete is superior to another. In cycling studies, for example, a Pro-Team will be measured, and the best guy is often the one with the smallest heart and lowest VO2max!

So is Michael Phelps a great athlete? Indeed. Does he train hard? Most certainly. Harder than his competitors? Perhaps, yes. Is he motivated? Maybe more than anyone else in the pool. But this speculation about how his toes are so long that they wrap around the starting blocks and give him an advantage? Or that he is double-jointed in his knees and that gives him a better dolphin kick? Or that his heart is extra large to pump blood (so are the other 7 guys', incidentally)?

Come on, people, let's keep it real here. Until those things are measured and shown to be true, let's just say he is a great athete with a strong will to win who so far has done everything right, including wearing a Speedo LZR Racer (and he has even been a bit lucky, too).

Quick Athletics wrap

The action on the track started on Friday, and you can read our post on the women's 10000 m final here. In other notable action it was the men's 100 m heats, and to no surprise we are on track for an epic show down between Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, and Tyson Gay (should his injured hamstring remain healthy). All three cruised through their respective heats, but no one made it look easier than Bolt. He won his heat in 9.92, s but in fact he had the race wrapped at 40-50 m, when you could see him glancing left and right to make sure he stayed ahead of the others.

That final is scheduled for Saturday at 10:30 PM Beijing time, so check your time zones now so you do not miss it!

Jonathan

Beijing 2008: Men's 200 m Fly and 4 x 200 m Free Finals

Four and Five - The Phelps Express steams ahead

Let me be the first to say that for two sports scientists so interested in endurance sports, we have never written so much about swimming! But it is history in the making in Beijing this year as Michael Phelps plowed ahead with gold medals numbers four and five in Beijing. In so doing, he has now won more gold medals than any other Olympian, in history. We look at his latest golds in a moment, but before that, perhaps the highlight of the day was the action in the men's 100 m freestyle, so let's take a look at that event first.

Swap meet of a different kind

Although much focus is on Phelps and his quest for eight golds, the men's 100 m free is shaping up to be one of the great races of the Games, as Australia's Eamonn Sullivan and France's Alain Bernard prepare for a showdown that surely will produce yet another record. In the first semi-final it was Bernard's turn to stamp some authority on the event. Recall that it was Bernard who was caught and beaten by Jason Lezak in the epic 4 x 100m relay two days ago. In that same race, he also lost his 100m Freestyle world record to Eamonn Sullivan - not a good outing all in all, and so he must feel a great desire to re-assert his status as number one.

In his semi-final, he did just that, as he took back the world record by 0.04 s in what must have been a shot at some mind games before the final. His time 47.22, and a record that only two days earlier had stood at 47.50s was now down by 0.28s.

That was only the beginning, however, because in the second semi-final, Sullivan came out to retake the record in 47.05! This year alone the record has fallen by 0.55 s (thank you, NASA and Speedo LZR Racer!), and if these two semis are any indication, either the Frenchman or the Aussie will be the first to break 47 s come Thursday as they fight for gold. There's also the presence of one Jason Lezak, who swam an astonishing 46.06 s in his relay leg, which was a full 0.6s faster than Bernard swam in that race. Somewhat surprisingly, he hasn't shown that kind of form, and is even down on his form from the US Trials five weeks ago, where he won the US title. He remains a threat, however, and has shown once that he can't be counted out.

A full analysis of the progression of that record might be in hand so that we might predict by how much it might fall in the final, but that will have to wait as we keep it coming and now turn to the men's 4 x 200 m freestyle.

5/5/8

China's lucky number of these games is 8/8/8, but so far Phelps is 5/5/8---five golds and five world records out of eight possible in total! Phelps started out the day with a gold, and a world record, in the 200 m fly. It might seem kind of "business as usual" at this point, except that at the end of the race Phelps was not as content as one might have expected, or certainly have seen in the previous victories. That may be because today was always going to be one of his toughest days - a 200m Butterfly final, followed by a medal ceremony, and then within 15 minutes, back in the pool to start off the 4 x 200m Freestyle relay. So perhaps Phelps' focus and "big picture" mindset was in play.

Of all his victories so far, this was the most controlled - it is testimony to the fact that he is so dominant that when he "only" broke the old world record by 0.06 s, it was noticeable! He was always in control, however, always on that world record pace, and perhaps the biggest surprise is that he was not alone, for early on, Moss Burmester from New Zealand in Lane 1 held Phelps by 0.5 s or less on the first three legs before losing 2.3 s in the homestretch. Unfortunately for him, he slipped back so dramatically that he fell off the podium altogether, and perhaps "deserved" something more. In the end, Phelps was comfortable, controlled, though not spectacular, but that might have been expected given the tough schedule he knew he'd be facing.

Men's 4 x 200 m Final. Another extra-ordinary performance: Are swimming world records meaningless?

Next on the agenda for Phelps was his second relay event, the 4 x 200 m freestyle final. The relays of course present a great threat to the quest for 8, because only 25% of the outcome lies in his sizeable hands. The 4 x 100m relay was spectacularly close, but the 4 x 200m, fortunately for Phelps, was not expected to be. It was always going to be a case of the margin of victory, rather than the question of victory, and so it turned out.

Phelps again lead off for his team, and rapidly built up a massive lead to hand over to Ryan Lochte, the second leg swimmer. The lead increased over the second leg, and by the time the third leg began, the USA was over 3 seconds under the old world record pace. Consider the time differences for each 200 m leg between the US men and second place at the time:

As has been the norm for the pool in Beijing, another world record was set, but this time the US men obliterated their prior record of 7:03.24 and dipped under seven minutes, swimming an astonishing 4.28 s faster and lowering the record to 6:58.56. Unlike in some other finals we have seen, no other team beat the previous record.

So the records continue to fall in the pool, including the women's 200 m freestyle and 200 m IM, where Frederica Pellegrini (ITA) and Stephaine Rice (AUS), respectively, took gold. The reality is that when a gold is won and the record is not broken, we feel disappointed. Swimming finds itself in something of an "artificial" situation, where world records are meaningless "tokens", though of course swimmers will not see it that way! However, it's worth looking at the difference between swimming and other world record sports, and that's an analysis for later today.

For the sake of length and time we will leave that analysis for now. We can start to look ahead to the end of the swimming phase of these games, though, and on to athletics, which actually gets underway this Friday. You can see a partial list of the events we will focus on here, so check that out and stay tuned for more insight into the incredible action in the pool.

Jonathan

Beijing 2008: Men's 200 m Freestyle

The Michael Phelps show rolls on: Is this a rerun?

In case you did not hear by now, a quick glance at our "Phelps medal counter" in the upper left of the screen will tell you that Michael Phelps has kept his quest for eight medals alive by pummeling the field in the men's 200 m freestyle. Need we mention that he set another world record in doing so? He shaved nearly a second off his own previous record of 1:43.86 and finished nearly two seconds ahead of South Korea's Park Tae-Hwan in lowering the record to 1:42.96. So it was a repeat of sorts when we saw him atop the podium with an official straining to drape the gold medal over Phelps' neck. He again demonstrated his sheer dominance in the freestyle by opening up a half-body length lead after the first lap and continued to pull away from the field on each sucessive leg.

Pacing to get on the podium?

A small analysis of the split times, which by the way can be found on NBC's Olympic website, shows a slight difference between the pretenders and the contenders:
Phelps, in yellow clearly, swims faster than everyone else on every single leg---which is a clumsy way of saying he won the race! But what we also see is that the swimmers with the largest difference between their third and fourth 50m splits are on the podium: Phelps (0.43 s), Park (0.97 s), and Vanderkaay (0.41 s) all sped up from 150m to 200m, more than the rest of the field. A couple of the other swimmers come close, namely Biedermann (0.35 s) and Okumura (0.39 s), but in a sport where hundredths of a second determines success or failure they are, quite simply, off the pace. The other thing is that from the first 50 m they were already at least 0.2 s slower than the medalists.

It is important to note, however, that the pacing strategies we see exhibted here by the medallists is not likely the cause of their medals, but rather a way to describe what is required to succeed at this level. There are many other factors that make Phelps and Park better swimmers than the rest of the pack, and the way they pace themselves is probably a consequence of those factors. So it is not as simple as just pulling aside Jean Basson, the South African who finished fourth, and telling him, "Listen, mate, all you have to do is change your pacing so you speed up in the last leg instead of slowing down and a medal will be yours!" Instead, swimmers like Basson lack the fitness, strength or other attribute(s) that gives them this ability to blitz the first 50 m and still speed up by a significant margin on the last leg.

An interesting case is Park, who swam nearly one second faster on his final leg compared to his third leg. This might be a case of an athlete who could improve by 0.25 or more seconds, because to swim that much faster suggests that perhaps he could have gone a bit quicker on one of the prior legs, although this still would have put him in second behind Phelps, who was too fast out of the blocks for everyone.

The best turner in the world?

Something we have said before, and is being repeated by many of the announcers during the race is the superiority of Phelps at the turn. If Phelps and another swimmer are level 5m from the wall, then you can be sure that 15 m later, when they emerge, Phelps will be half a body length ahead. He makes up ground (or water?) on the turns, especially the final turn of each event, but I think it becomes a bit distorted as he likely ups his intensity, upon coming to the surface as he swims away from the others. Still, it might be interesting to analyze his turn and see exactly what his gains are. Does he have a stronger push off, i.e. does he have more knee flexor strength? Or does he execute the dolphin kick better than anyone else? Video analysis might give us some of the answers, and we will keep our eye out for anything that might provide some insight.

Our focus is of course the "big picture", and the technical aspects are best left to those more expert than ourselves. One interesting blog on the more technical aspects is this one - which includes a great discussion of the pacing strategies adopted in yesterday's epic 4 x 100m Freestyle relay race between the USA and France.

Staking another claim

In winning this, his third gold of Beijing, Phelps has now joined an elite club of former Olympians as one of the most-titled athletes. The other members of this club include Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz, and (Soviet gymnast) Larysa Latynina, each of whom have nine golds. Of course Phelps surely will surpass all of these legends over the next few days to become the athlete with the most golds ever as he needs just one more to do so. Should he go on to claim an additional five golds, then we could see another generation go by before someone bests him.

Training and tapering: the forgotten variables

Speedo LZR racers aside, two things that Phelps and his coach have clearly nailed are his training and tapering, for there is no doubt that he is on top form right now. To arrive at a competition and win is one thing, but to set records in doing so is a clear indication that he optimized his training and got his taper just right. To be sure, he and his coach have had much experience with this over the years, but to get it right in such a big way is no small feat and cannot be overlooked!

Jonathan

How to become an Olympic athlete

Hint: Choose your parents wisely!

Being an Olympic year, and with the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, now upon us, it is only right that we discuss how exactly to become a great and even legendary athlete. After all, predicting athletic performance is a bit of the "holy grail" in sports science, and around big competitions such as the Olympics this is always a hot topic. And since we had a convergence of events here at the Science of Sport with the birth of Jacques Dugas, the Tour de France, and the Beijing Olympic Games all within a few weeks of one another, this is a fantastic opportunity to take a tongue-in-cheek look at athletic performance and how we can predict it!

Why predict performance?

As mentioned, this is a kind of "holy grail" area in Sports Science, and plenty of scientists have devoted much time and effort to this topic. The not-so-obvious reason to engage in this line of research is simply for the pursuit of knowledge, and also because if we could unlock the mechanisms that predict athletic performance, those findings would likely lead to many other "secrets" of human physiology and greatly enhance our understanding of the human body.

The more obvious reason is for talent identification. Owners, coaches, managers, and scouts, often live and die by their ability to identify the next David Beckham, Haile Gebrselassie or LeBron James. Plenty (ok, a lot!) of time, money, and effort are invested in locating the next great athlete in any given sport, signing that player to a multi-year contract, and then developing that great talent into the next legend. Of course the financial benefits for all parties can be staggering if they get it right, and hence the great emphasis on the talent identification process.

Red herrings from the past

For many years one's VO2max was thought to be the best predictor of endurance performance. Since endurance exercise relies on producing energy from oxidative means, it seemed only a short leap to equating superior VO2max with superior endurance performance. The funny thing is that many coaches and scientists alike still believe this to be true. However, and we have written about this here before, if we were to measure the entire peloton in this year's Tour de France, and plotted them against their overall placing, we would see little or no relationship. The same holds true if we were to plot their individual performances in just the 53 km time trial. The problem here is the physiologically the cyclists in the peloton are very similar to each other. To ride at that level one probably needs a VO2max of at least 65 mL/kg/min, but we will also find plenty of good recreational cyclists with VO2max measurements of 65 or even higher (in fact mine is 71 mL/kg/min, but I am no where near close to quitting my day job to pursue life as a pro cyclist!)

One important aspect to consider and understand here is that to be a "good" endurance athlete, one must have a relatively high VO2max, say for example about 60 mL/kg/min. If you are already endurance trained and your VO2max is below 50, you are unlikely to set any endurance records and probably will not run a sub-three marathon.

So VO2max is a descriptor in the sense that it helps us describe a given population of athletes, but it will not predict who will be the best athlete, and that is because your VO2max is not the cause of your performance. . .rather, your performance is the cause of your VO2max. Let's call it a prerequisite as opposed to a predictor. By this we mean that some other factors are ultimately responsible for the fact that you cane everyone in your running club at the weekly time trial, and because you have these other characteristics, your brain allows you to activate more muscle, which leads to faster running speeds, and because you use more muscle you have a higher VO2max (since muscle is the metabolically active tissue). To understand this better, please see our series on fatigue for a much more in depth discussion and explanation about these concepts.

The "ACE" gene and athletic performance

One of the first genes to be associated with athletic performance was the "ACE" gene. "ACE" in this context does not refer to a superior baseball pitcher, though, but rather the "Angio-tensin converting enzyme." It is an enzyme involved in fluid balance and has an association with performance. In other words, some people who have specific variations of this gene do better in endurance events or respond better to endurance training. Many have studied this gene, and the pdf file for one of those studies can be found here.

There does seem to be some association between some aspects of performance and this gene, but it is far from being a single predictor of athletic performance. The study above from Nature could show only that the subjects with the one genotype responded better to endurance training, but did not really measure performance outright. And although one's ability to respond to training is vital to performance, it will not guarantee success and accounts for only some of what we see. In addition to responsiveness to training there are still many other characteristics you must possess, for example superior visual acuity and superior neuro-muscular control just to name two.

Understanding performance: Choose wisely!

Perhaps we need to approach sporting performance from a slightly different angle. A great quote by Professor Tim Noakes goes like this:

"Sports is a Darwinian selection process that selects out the group of people who are genetically predisposed to be successful in that sport. If you don't have the genes, you aren't going to make it."

Hence the title of this post: "Choose your parents wisely!" While we will be the first to admit that a myriad of factors and variables must converge to produce superior athletic performance, it is perhaps the genetic component that plays the biggest role. This can be illustrated by some rather simple examples.

Generally speaking the best endurance runners are rather small individuals. If they are not shorter than six feet, then they are "ectomorphic," or tall and lanky. The reason for this has to do with the energy demands of moving your body, which is your metabolic rate or essentially your mass multiplied by your velocity. Simple math will tell you that when running at 4:00 per km (about 6:25 per mile) it will cost a 100 kg individual much more than it will cost a 60 kg individual. In fact, the 100 kg person might be working at 100% or more of their max, while the 60 kg person will be exercising at a much lower intensity. And no matter how hard the 100 kg athlete trains and works, he will never weigh 60 kg, and in fact he will never weigh much less than 90 kg probably---his genes dictate that he has a relatively massive physique.

We can also examine this going the other way. To play any position in the NFL, even the smallest, more or less requires a minimum mass of perhaps 85 kg (187 lbs). That just seems to be what the sport requires, more or less. And again, no matter how hard I train and no matter how many weights I lift, no matter how much "bulk builder" shakes I drink, I will likely never weigh much more than 80 kg. . .or I will, but I will not be 12% body fat! So here genetics also tells me that I am highly unlikely to be successful at the power sports.

The process of self-selection

The individuals who possess all the right genes (genotype) and are provided with the correct environment (phenotype) will then excel in a given activity. By self-selection we mean that an individual will be drawn to an activity in which he or she excels, and will cease participating in those activities in which they perform poorly. The exception to this rule occurs in those sports whose cultures require intense and consuming participation from very early childhood, sports such as gymnastics and diving. In those cases, the kids hardly have a chance to select themselves into a different sport in which they might be more successful as the adults who surround them make the selection at a very early point in time.

The super-athlete

Infrequently we see the convergence of all the necessary traits for superior sporting performance. It does not happen often, but those in the past and present include Connie Carpenter-Phinney, a successful and Olympic level speed skater who turned to cycling after an ankle injury and went on to win Gold in the Los Angeles Road Race in 1984, among many other victories. Two other modern-day examples are Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. Both excelled in the NFL and MLB, and although neither posted legendary numbers, they turned in respected performances in both sports. In fact Sanders completed on both the World Series and the Superbowl. Further, the fact that teams were willing to sign them (for lucrative contracts) says much about the value placed on them as athletes.

But this being an Olympic year and an Olympic post, let's not forget Sheila Taormina. In 1996 she won gold in Atlanta on the 4 x 200 m freestyle relay team. Four years later she finished sixth in the triathlon in Sydney, and in 2004 she won the triathlon world champs. She again competed at the Olympic level, but finished only 23rd in Athens. Which brings us to 2008 and yet another summer games with Taormina, this time in the modern pentathlon! Clearly she has the genes, as evidenced by her transition from swimming to triathlon. When we think of what predicts performance in swimming, we do not associate those characteristics with running or cycling performance, yet she was competitive on both sports.

Genes + Environment = Success

So we must realize that to succeed at the highest levels of sport one must clearly have the genes. However at the same time you must be exposed to the appropriate environmental stimuli that will permit you to exploit your superior genes. We guarantee that for every Bo, Deion, and Sheila, there are countless others who do in fact possess the genes for superior athletic performance, but instead of training six days a week, they are are working a desk job six days a week---and that is simply because they were not exposed to the "right" environment for them to end up as an athlete.

So you can now watch with an added layer of understanding as your athletic heroes triumph in their event. They trained hard to get there, to be sure, but they have their parents to thank in more ways than one!

Jonathan

World Record 110m Hurdles

Note: This is our second post today - the first was a preview of Sunday's Comrades Marathon for all our "ultra-marathon" fans...you can scroll down to check out that post if you're receving our daily email.

Dayron Robles ups the ante: Liu Xiang is definitely losing sleep now!

We're a little slow on the uptake on this one, but I guess better late than never...

Dayron Robles of Cuba, out of nowhere, has broken the 110m hurdles world record!

His time - 12.87 seconds, which shaves 0.01 seconds off the previous best, held by Liu Xiang of China. It caps a pretty bad week for the Chinese superstar - he has been battling with a hamstring injury, and he then false started to get disqualified at the Prefontaine Meeting, leading to wide speculation that he'd done it on purpose to avoid the pressure of race defeat. Now, Robles of Cuba, aged just 21, has upped the pressure on the Beijing poster boy even more.

Everyone has been looking at Robles for the last two seasons, saying that if anyone was going to knock Liu of the top step of the podium, it would be the talented Cuban. Earlier this year, he was unbeatable indoors, until he got himself disqualified at the World Championships. That was a major blow, because had he gone through with the deal, he should have beaten Liu for the gold there, gaining another notch in the psychological battle that is bound to peak in Beijing in August.

But, now, at the Ostrava meeting last night, he's finally delivered on his promise, and announced to the world that come Beijing, Liu is going to have to be 100% perfection to fulfil the expectations of a billion people - the margin for error, already tiny in the high hurdles event, just got a lot smaller!

Who would want to be Liu Xiang?

A week ago, when we gave a brief summary of the Prefontaine meeting, we mentioned the enormous pressure that Xiang finds himself under.

Late last year, we did a post giving out our own Science of Sport Awards to the best achievers of 2007. It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek (Marion Jones received the Undo-A-Lifetime-Achievement Award, for example), but we did mention then that Liu Xiang should be the recipient of the "Losing Sleep Over the Future Award". The pressure he must find himself under is immense. I can't think of another athlete who has ever been under the kind of scrutiny that Liu will find himself under in Beijing, if he's not already! A billion people have looked at him, an individual competing in one the most technical events arounds, as their great hope for a track and field medal.

And to date, he has handled himself admirably. He took the world record in 2007 in Lausanne, he won the World title in Osaka, he's delivered on every major stage so far, and so it's not so much a case of Liu folding under the pressure as it is of the other narrowing the gap on him over time. The Olympic Games may (and it's early days yet) be a few months too late for Liu, if his rivals can continue their progress - already this year, there have been two sub-13 second clockings (David Oliver was the other athlete, running is Qatar), and so Liu's buffer is slowly being eroded.

So what of Beijing? Perhaps Robles and Liu both crack under pressure, and a third party steals it

That said, I'd still make him the favourite for Beijing, purely because his rivals are just about as untested as he is under that kind of pressure. The 110m hurdles event, to repeat, has the smallest margin for error at the best of times. A millisecond too early or too late, or a millimeter too low or too high, and the race rhythm can be lost and so any tension or over-arousal out the blocks can serious undermine the best efforts.

And in a perverse way, this world record by Robles has ensured that he too will go to Beijing under intense pressure. Had he kept his great form "hidden" and gone there as one of seven men who "might" dethrone Liu, then he could slip under the blanket of pressure the 110m hurdles athletes will face. However, the attention of a global audience is now squarely on his shoulders, as much as it is on Liu's. What are the chances that neither of these two wins gold, and some as yet-unknown or unfancied athlete running in lane 2 or lane 7 sneaks through to win? Stranger things have happened, and the situation just seems to me to be developing to the point where that may indeed happen. Were I a betting man, I'd pick the American champion, whoever that may be (after the US Olympic trials, that is).

Regardless, a great performance by Robles, and time will tell if he can get even faster and repeat this kind of form. Liu knows he can - he's run sub-12.90 twice. Quite how both handle Beijing's cauldron remains to be seen. Yet another Olympic event building nicely to a crescendo!

Ross

2008 Prefontaine Results

No record for Bekele, but Sweet 16 for Mutola

In spite of all the hype about a potential world record on the books for the 2008 Prefontaine Classic, including moving the start time to 9:30 local time as apparently that is when the wind conditions were most favorable, it was not to be, and Kenenisa Bekele instead ran a strong 26:25.97 to clock the fastest ever time on US soil.

A strong start, but legs enough only to cane the field

At four km Bekele was just three seconds off pace at 10:33, and hit halfway in a cool 13:10. He ran away from the field, but slowed down the stretch to finish just eight seconds too slow for the record. It was a valiant attempt as he ran in true Bekele style---solo and in front of everyone, including his two teammates Ibrahim Jeilan and Maregu Zewdie. Although they were nearly a minute back (27:13.85 and 27:14.13, respectively), they completed an Ethiopian sweep of the race.

It is probably just where Bekele wants to be, actually. Hitting world-record form 8-10 weeks prior to Beijing would signify an early peak, and one that would be extremely difficult to maintain over so many races. Instead, this will likely give Bekele crucial feedback about his form and training to date, just in time to implement some final tweaks over the summer to hit (even better) form in August. It is apparently Bekele's last 10,000 m race prior to Beijing, and given his performance today he looks to be in a perfect position to take gold come August.

Worse than the "Chinese Water Torture"---Chinese Hurdler Mind Games?

After pulling out last week in New York, Liu Xiang false started in his race (the second one in the race and therefore an automatic DQ), leaving questions about his current form. Said Xiang, "My speed is so fast I did not realise I had the false start." However, on the boards over at LetsRun.com many suspect that it was a ploy to relieve Xiang of the pressure of competing as his countryman was the first to false start in that race.

Generally we are not a fan of conspiracy theories, but this one sounds plausible! The pressure on Xiang is incredible, and surely he must feel it in some way, shape, or form. Given such intense pressure it is not surprising the antics that people can get up to. Ploy or not, though, we must now await his next race to see how he stacks up against the field.

Mutola completes her 16 year string of wins

Incredibly, even after showing some weakness in the past 12 months in the twilight of her career, Maria Mutola went on to finish the job she started in Eugene, Oregon, 16 years ago. That was when she first won at the Prefontaine Classic, although it was over 1500 m. Yet victory for her was a recurring theme of this meeting every year since, save 2002 when she did not compete. Her string of wins includes 12 over 800 m, three wins over 1000 m, and one win at 1500 m. An astounding 16 straight victories for Mutola caps an amazing career in the women's 800 m.

Her 1:59.24 was a far cry from her best of 1:55.19, but to demonstrate such consistency is truly remarkable. Mutola will compete in Beijing to make it her sixth straight Olympic appearance. We do not fancy her chances for gold, but nevertheless she is a remarkable athlete and we hope she does well in her final Olympic Games.


A look ahead to Beijing - Where should they be?

The interesting thing about these races and any subsequent ones in the next two weeks is that they represent the last tune up for athletes hoping to peak in Beijing. This is because any training they complete in the run up to August will not produce results in June or July as it takes some weeks to make all the physiological adaptations.

Bekele looks to be in a good position, as does Allyson Felix who finished a distance fourth in the women's 100 m in 11.06. Admittedly the 200 m and 400 m are more of Felix's events, but her foray into the 100 m at the Pre meet this year was surely a chance to check her speed and form. The feedback these athletes take away from their races this weekend (including those who ran in Oslo---Jeremy Wariner broke 44 s) is invaluable. Athlete and coach now sit down identify what exactly they must improve prior to Beijing, and will go on to complete very specific training over the next 8-10 weeks which they and their coaches think will provide them that winning advantage come crunch time in August.

So watch your favorite athletes now, as the form they produce in the next 1-2 weeks will be telling down the stretch.

A look ahead - Dauphine Libere and a wrap on Fatigue

We have not focused much on cycling this year at The Science of Sport, and in fact the Giro d'Italia came and went without a peep from The Sports Scientists! However the Dauphine Libere kicked off today in France, and this race is known for predicting performance in le Tour which starts on 5 July this year. Levi Leipheimer took the prologue on the opening day, but lots of racing lies ahead in this tough eight-stage race.

We will also try to put a wrap on our Fatigue series. This was an incredibly challenging one to write as the topic is complex and wide, hence the length of the posts and the series in general. However we hope to cap the series with an "executive summary," watch out for that soon!

Can a Kenyan win the 2008 Olympic Marathon?

World leaders named to team, but can they reach the podium in Beijing?

The big-city Spring marathons are long gone, and in fact we are moving into Athletics season now with the Hengelo meeting already behind us. But in their wake the spring marathons left a pile of dominant Kenyans. Namely, Martin Lel, Sammy Wanjiru, and Robert Cheruiyot. Those three runners were named officially to the Kenyan marathaon team, but in fact between Paris, London, and Rotterdam, fully six Kenyans broke 2:07, and Cheruiyot, with a 2:07:46 in Boston may well have broke 2:07 on any other course. We have gone on about Martin Lel as perhaps the best marathoner ever, and we were most impressed with how Cheruiyot decimated the field from the front and ran away with the win in Boston, but even with this impressive trio lining up in Beijing can Kenya bring home the gold?

A dearth of Kenyan marathon medals

Although we associate Kenyans with middle-distance and marathon dominance---Kenyan men have won 16 of the last 20 Boston races---to date no Kenyan has won marathon gold, and in fact they medaled only thrice, with two of those medals from the same runner:

• Douglas Wakihurui, 1988 Silver medalist
• Eric Wainaina, 1996 Bronze medalist
• Eric Wainaina, 2000 Silver medalist
  

So in spite of utter dominance on the road circuit, and in the middle-distance events on the track (especially the steeple chase), the Kenyan men are without marathon gold. Admittedly, only 13 different countries have taken Olympic gold since 1896 (25 races), and only two men have won twice. So it is not an event that one country appears to be able to dominate across the years. But this seems strange given how dominant the Kenyans have been at the shorter distances, too, as the faster runners over 5000 m and 10000 m distances tend to be the faster runners in the marathon. So one would think that the runners would filter through from the shorter events and continue to dominate over the marathon distance.

But the really interesting thing is that when you examine the dominant middle-distance Kenyan athletes from the 1980's and 1990's, we see that very few, if any of them, "graduated" to the marathon. It seems the only Kenyan track star to move on to the marathon is Paul Tergat. However, in previous years it also does not seem as though the Kenyan men have shown such incredible depth and form in the marathon going into the games. Have Kenyan men won big races like Boston and London in Olympic years? Boston, yes, but London, no:

• 1988 - Henrik Jorgensen, DEN
• 1992 - Antonio Pinto, POR
• 1996 - Dionicio Ceron, ITA
• 2000 - Antonio Pinto, POR
• 2004 - Evans Rutto, KEN

And Rutto was not selected for the 2004 Olympic Marathon team, with Tergat and the veteran Eric Wainaina the only two Kenyans lining up for that race, which is interesting in itself that Kenya had only two runners in that race when all countries were allowed a maximum of three. It is unclear why the medalists in the 800 - 10000 m never moved up to the marathon. Perhaps there was no incentive to carry on training so hard as those athletes had achieved financial and other success already, and most likely secured their retirement at an early age.

But perhaps this is the year of the Kenyan Olympic Marathon champion? We are not betting men, but if we were, the smart money is on "no." The history of the Olympic Marathon race tells us that it is too unpredictable. In fact going into the Athens race in 2004, Paul Tergat was hands down the fastest man on the line, posting his then WR of 2:04:55, which was nearly 90 s faster than South Africa's Gert Thys. Yet both of these runners were well off the pace and finished far out of contention.

This unpredictability is likely the result of a number of factors, perhaps most importantly that nations can field a maximum of only three runners in the race. This makes the odds a bit more even for any country to win gold. Next is the nature of the Olympic marathon courses. Seldom are they flat and straight, and instead tend to wind thru the host cities with no regard for hills and climbs. This changes the racing tactics away from a fast "time-trial" like event and more into a "wait and see" race of attrition. Finally, the environmental conditions tend to be hot and humid---it is the Summer Olympics, after all---which as we mentioned here previously does not suit the Kenyans due to their choice to remain at altitude, where it is temperate and dry, during their Olympic preparations.

But there is hope. . .!

Young Sammy Wanjiru, he of blistering half-marathon speed and a 2:06:01 average for his first two marathons, is based in Japan and trains with a Japanese coach. Should he win Olympic gold, he will be the youngest Olympic marathon champion as he will be only 21 when he races in Beijing this summer. Lel is the King for now, but Wanjiru gets the nod from us as the best hope for a Kenyan marathon medal due to his training base in Asia.

And with only about 70 days remaining until the opening ceremonies, the marathoners (and other athletes, too) will be entering into a crucial phase of their training. It takes some time to make training adaptations, and so they will be aiming for two periods of very hard training now from which they will benefit only in August.

In the meantime we will watch with much interest how everyone performs in the IAAF meets in June and July as this will provide some insight into their current form. Watch for the perennial favorites who are not producing top times, as running so fast now would indicate peaking too early, and it is difficult to maintain such great form for over two months. Instead we should see them near the top, maybe winning, but with times off their best performances. In any case it will be a most interesting lead up to Beijing, and be sure to join us here for all the analysis along the way!

Olympic Marathon News

The Kenyan Team is announced. And Gebrselassie's Real reason for not running the Beijing Olympic Marathon?

Just time for two very brief news items today from the world of marathon running:

Kenya's Olympic Marathon team - as expected...

The first is that the Kenyan team for the Olympic Marathon has been announced, and not surprisingly, it consists of the big three "winners" from the recent series of Spring marathons.

That is, the team consists of:

• Martin Lel - London winner, and fastest in the world this year at 2:05:16
• Sammy Wanjiru - Second in London behind Lel, and perhaps the best half marathon runner in history
• Robert Cheruiyot - the impressive, front-running winner in Boston, where he destroyed an admittedly weak field with a sustained period of pressure
  

It's an unbelievable team, three men who arguably can't be challenged in terms of pedigree, particularly with Gebrselassie not running (more on that later). It's made even more clear just how incredible this squad is when you consider that the "alternate" (reserve) is William Kipsang, who won in Rotterdam recently in another sub-2:06 clocking, with 2 other sub 2:07 performances in his CV! But perhaps even more amazing is the fact that Emmanuel Mutai, last year's second best runner and fourth in London this year in the most competitive marathon field ever doesn't even crack a reserve spot!

And then perhaps most sadly, it means no place for Paul Tergat, the great Kenyan, who has won two Olympic silver medals at 10,000m, and is someone we would love to see win Olympic Gold. That will now not happen, though in truth, Tergat would really struggle against this new generation of marathon racers who have followed in his lofty footsteps.

Another word on the heat issue

In yesterday's post, we discussed whether these three Kenyans would feature as strongly in Beijing, as a result of their preference for remaining in Kenya during the preparation phase. Problem is, Kenya in June and July is relatively cool and has very little humidity, and so the problem with the Beijing heat may pose a bigger challenge than people think. The default is to assume that Africans enjoy the heat, but the combination of timing, seasonal environmental changes and training habits make Beijing's Olympic race an intriguing one.

One of our readers, Stan, mailed and suggested that perhaps simply running in warm clothes in a moderate environment would suffice, and certainly, this is the very least they might wish to do, as part of the preparation. I'm not 100% convinced that the effect is the same, because the sensation of the heat and humidity can never be 100% replicated through clothing. However, one would hope they're doing that. If so, and if they carry the same kind of form into August as we saw from these three in Kenya, perhaps we'll see an all Kenyan podium? I doubt it - the Olympic Marathon produces some surprises, and the conditions will be a great leveller, but it's a formidable team, for sure!

Gebrselassie announces his "Real" reason for missing Beijing - a Berlin WR

About two months ago, Haile Gebrselassie, marathon world record holder, announced that he would not take part in the Olympic marathon, citing "fears for his health" as a result of the much vaunted pollution in Bejing.

When we covered that story, we were highly sceptical of his reasons. There were two main concerns:

First, the pollution was at best a speculative excuse - everyone is worried about it, and talk of gas masks and late arrivals has been abundant, but ultimately, to bypass the Olympic race (an ambition he's stated for a long time, recall) on the basis of a "maybe" seems a little reckless.

But more important, from a scientific point of view, there was no reason at all to believe that Beijing's pollution was so bad that the three days in Beijing plus 2 hours of marathon running would pose a long term health risk. We wrote at the time that the worst that would happen is that he'd be forced to withdraw at say 10km with difficulty breathing. But a week after that, no problem. And of course, this would be a justified reason for not competing, but the talk of "long term health risks" was bizarre. And then finally, he said that instead of the marathon, he'd run the 10,000m event instead. In my opinion, the 10,000 m is EVEN MORE likely to be affected by pollution than the marathon, simply because the rates of ventilation are so high. It's a race done at 95% of VO2max, the marathon is only at 80%, and that high rate means if pollution is going to be a problem, it will affect the shorter distance races more.

In any event, this speculation all led to the conculsion that in fact, Gebrselassie had another race plan in mind.

Turns out that this "other race" may have been the incentive all along, because Gebrselassie announced yesterday that his ambition is to return to the Real Berlin Marathon where he set his world record last year. That race takes place in October, and so comes too soon after the Olympic Games to run both races. So rather than risk an Olympic race that was bound to be tactical (bear in mind that Gebrselassie has never won a tactical, competitive marathon race, his victories have all been solo finishes), it would seem that he has opted for the world record incentive.

Of course, there is the alternative explanation, put forward in some articles about this latest news, which is that he’s come under pressure to retract his earlier explanation, because of the embarrassment it has caused the Chinese organizers (who are more than a touch self-conscious about the pollution risks). That may be a valid explanation – certainly, it would seem that this form of subtle “censorship” will be a feature of China in the build-up to the Games. However, being somewhat cynical, I still suspect that the more likely explanation is that the intention was to run in Berlin all along, and the pollution provided a convenient excuse to do so. And only then did any pressure come to bear and cause him to express the Berlin goal.

Regardless, it’s a real shame for the Games, because it denies us the chance of seeing the three magnificent Kenyans in a race against the world record holder. And I suspect we’ll never see that race – Gebrselassie will run in Berlin, and then he’ll probably line up Dubai as another paced record attempt next year. And from then on, he’ll run those two big races a year, aiming to crack that 2:04-barrier he’s spoken about. The Kenyans, for their part, will continue to race each other in the Majors, and the race we all want to see won’t happen.

And the biggest irony at the end of all this – I doubt we’ll see another world record. And we almost certainly won’t see a sub-2:04 clocking. The event is too unpredictable, requires too much to fall into place on the day, and Gebrselassie is, unfortunately, nearing the end of his lifespan as a 2:04-runner – he’s done perhaps 8 high class marathons, and needs another two huge performances to bring that time into the mid-2:03's. Not going to happen...But that’s just my feeling, time will tell! Ross

London Marathon and Speedo LZR news

London Marathon review. And in the pool, Arena's Revenge against the Speedo LZR Racer!

Now that the dust has settled on yesterday's magnificent London Marathon, I thought I'd follow up with some more analysis of the race, and why it developed the way it did. And then of course, there is the latest installment in what is rapidly becoming an epic saga of swimsuits, technology and controversy.

London Marathon - Magnificent Martin Lel

Martin Lel, as we noted yesterday, must now surely be recognized as the pre-eminent marathon racer in the world. There are those who will argue that Haile Gebrselassie is number 1, and certainly, when it comes to racing the clock, no one has matched him. He's also the greatest runner of the range of distances ever, no question. That title is not in doubt. But right now, Lel is the greatest marathon runner, and his list of titles gives him a huge claim for greatest ever marathoner - 3 x London (and 2nd once), 2 x New York, and two 3rd places at Boston in the last five years represents a CV no one can match. There's also a world half-marathon title, plus two victories in the PeachTree race, and the Great North Run title.

And then Gebrselassie has never won a marathon RACE - his wins have all come with a group of five pace-makers to 30km and the nearest competition two minutes behind. Martin Lel, for the last 12 months, seems unable to LOSE races - three major Marathons, plus the Great North Run - a remarkable sequence of world class performance.

There are those who felt that had Gebrselassie been in yesterday's race, he would have won it and broken the record. Who knows? I doubt it - the record most definitely would not happen, as the tactics cost the athletes at least 30 seconds. But based on the evidence from previous races where he has been somewhat exposed in the final 5km when the racing is on, I'd be hard pressed to see him matching Lel and Wanjiru. Yesterday, Martin Lel showed the world how to race a marathon.

He ended up running the 4th fastest time in history, despite losing time to the tactical games being played from 30km. If you look at the race splits, you'll see that the elite men slowed quite substantially between 30 and 40km. That happened just after the pace-makers dropped out, and the elite men began gearing up for the finish, looking at each other, getting cagey, as so often happens in this kind of race. There was also the rain, which lashed the course during this time, and may have contributed to a slowing in pace. It's difficult to know how much time was lost - 30 seconds, perhaps? Maybe more?

Extra-ordinary finishing ability - Lel finishes like a track runner

In any event, I went back to the race and tried to pull some splits from the final kilometer. Admittedly, there's a second or two of error in these times, but this is what I measured:

• Final 600m covered in 1:36 (64 seconds/400m pace)
• Final 385 yards covered in 52 seconds (60 seconds/400m pace)
• Final 200m run in 28 seconds (56 seconds/400m pace)

Absolutely astonishing speed, and at the end of a race run in 2:05:16. Given also that Lel was completely in control of all this, I really do believe that given the right race (that is, 5 pacemakers and no competition from 30km onwards), Lel has the world record in him. Because when you can control the best runners in the world, slow down and lose time due to tactics, run a poorly paced race thanks to a suicidal pace in the first 5km, then you have capacity to run at least a minute faster with the right race. That point is arguable, but I believe time will bear it out. That is, if Lel ever has his shot - I get the impression that Lel is a pure-racer - he won't stay away from London and other big races to pursue times, and that will ultimately count against him.

The other runners - a post-mortem of the top three

As for the rest, no one can be unhappy with their performances. Sammy Wanjiru, only 21, and in only his second marathon, should be pleased, and should now get on with the business of running shorter distances. His very early jump up to the marathon is not, from a physiological point of view, the most advisable one. I know his coach is also reluctant to have him race too many marathons, and with good reason. I fear that he will over-race and by the age of 24, might be stuck in the 2:07 range, with no chance of improvement. He's certainly a great talent, and could well go on to break Martin Lel's world record (I'm using creative licence here, by the way!).

But before that, Wanjiru will line up in Beijing as a joint favourite with Lel. It is difficult too see Lel being beaten, but Beijing is Wanjiru's best shot. The reason? He is based in the Far East for much of the year, and so the humidity and temperatures will be familiar for Wanjiru. Not so much for Lel, though he has said the heat doesn't worry him. What is interesting to note about the East Africans is that many of them don't enjoy the heat and humidity - remember that they train at altitude, where it's generally cooler and less humid. Also, unlike the Europeans and Americans, they don't go to special training camps for the heat, because they like to be based at home, working a formula that has always brought them success. So Beijing may really be more of a challenge for the Kenyans than we think. So Lel might have his work cut out. Wanjiru, however, is a name to look out for.

In third yesterday was Goumri, who ran a massive PB by over 2 minutes. It was his third marathon, and so he's on the up. He'll be disappointed that he couldn't challenge in the final 400m, but still, 2 minutes PB is not a bad day out. The problem for Goumri is that he is in danger of becoming Lel's bridesmaid. He's run 3 marathons, and three times, he's been starting at the back of Lel with 1km to go. Three times, he's been absolutely buried by Lel's kick. So his only experience of the marathon is a 41km race with a 1km mismatch at the end! He'll have to figure out how to overcome that. Yesterday, he simply wasn't strong enough - he tried, with about 2km to go, to push on, but the two Kenyans were clearly in great shape and they answered his very short surge, and then put him into difficulty. Goumri will be back, and he'll be hoping Lel is not in the same race!

One other honourable mention goes to Ryan Hall. He also set a PB by two minutes, and was one of the main drivers of the race strategy, according to this great interview with Martin Lel. Hall, the great hope of non-East Africans, is a really promising athlete. Having exploded into the global scene by breaking 60minutes for a half marathon last year, he then did a 2:08 on debut in London last year, won the US Olympic Trials in great style and now has done himself proud in this race.

The problem for Hall, as it is for anyone else, is where to now? Three Kenyans finished ahead of him in London, and one of them (Emmanuel Mutai) probably won't even make the Olympic Games. At the same time, another Kenyan ran sub 2:06 in Rotterdam, and then there is a host lining up in Boston next Monday to stake their claim. And that doesn't even mention the Ethiopians, who have always produced great finishers. The final 2%, as it is in most sports, is often the most difficult to achieve, and so what Hall needs to aspire to is that last little bit to complete the package - he's 98% there, and can certainly go all the way, but more often than not, this is where the barrier exists.

Time will tell whether Hall has what it takes - it's certainly great to see a fresh face to add some variety to the usual phalanx of remarkable Africans, so hopefully he features for a while. He's also seems incredibly level headed and grounded, which will help, from what I have seen and read about him. Just a word of caution, however, is that the temptation will exist to race often, and for success, which often comes at the expense of quality. So Hall, who is still young, needs to be cautious about his own development, and then time will tell whether that last 2% is achievable for him.

Wrap up of London

I'm sure we'll return to London in some form over the next couple of days - you don't put that kind of race out of the memory so quickly! But for now, to sum London up, it was Lel's coronation as the King of the Marathon, and London retained its own crown as the greatest of marathons. To produce 6 times under 2:07, and three under 2:06, makes this the greatest marathon ever, and it was won by perhaps the greatest marathoner ever - bring on the world record.

Speedo LZR Racer vs. Arena's Revenge

Now, for a change in medium, we move from land to water, and the latest installment in a drama that is taking on epic proportions!

FINA approves the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit - and opens the can of worms

The world short-course swimming championships in Manchester have drawn to a close, and saw 18 world records broken in the five days of competition! That is added to the 19 long course world records already broken this year!

However, the championships may well be more significant for the fact that FINA, swimming's governing body, has announced that the Speedo LZR Racer Swimsuit, the center of the controversy about technology and performance, is legal and meets all FINA's stipulated specifications for swimsuits.

In case you've missed it, Speedo brought out its latest suit, the LZR Racer, earlier this year, and it's been an absolute sensation in the pools. Of the 19 long course and 18 short course world records set in the pool this year, 18 and 17 were set in the LZR Racer, respectively! That's 35 out of 37, the only other manufacturer getting a look in is Arena, which has been worn in the other 2 records.

For the record, someone has analysed swimming records in Olympic years and found that in every Olympic year since 1988, the average number of world records broken before the Olympic Games is....FIVE. 2008 has delivered 37 in total! It is clearly an anomaly, leading to names for the LZR of "drugs on a hanger"!

So that introduces something of a conflict for the swimmers, and a difficult decision. Do you wear the Speedo LZR and go for gold, or do you remain loyal to your sponsors if you happen to be unlucky enough to be sponsored by anyone other than Speedo?

Gerhard Zandberg of South Africa has made his mind up. According to this report, he will wear the LZR Racer even though he faces a fine of $3000 if he does. His words: "I'm going to wear the Speedo at the Olympics. I'm not going to sacrifice performance. I'll be fined $5000, but what's $5000?"

Other "non-Speedo" swimmers are equally disgruntled. Fillipo Magnini, world long course champ, feels at a disadvantage when racing against Speedo swimmers, and has expressed his displeasure. All in all, not a very pleasant situation for swimmers or manufacturers (other than Speedo, that is)

Help may be at hand - FINA legalizes the suit and so Arena responds

But, help may be at hand. Because at a summit held to discuss the suits at the Manchester championships, FINA cleared up what had apparently been some confusion around the design of the suits. According to reports from the meeting, the confusion, particularly on the part of Arena (who had asked FINA to review ALL suits and then ban those that were illegal), involved the specifications of what materials could be used in the suits.

That is, according to FINA rules, swimsuits should be made of "regular flat fabrics" and "no outside applications shall be added" (art. 3.1 b).

Arena interpreted this to mean that the panels of polyurethane, drag-free material that Speedo had incorporated into its LZR Racer at hydronamically beneficial locations were illegal. Not so, according to FINA officials and the meeting held in Manchester this weekend. FINA have instead clarified that the rules do not limit the fabrics, and that other materials could be used.

This has opened the door (or a can of worms, if you wish) for other manufacturers to step in. And first through that door, unsurprisingly, are Arena. According to the Arena CEO, Cristiano Portas, Arena are ready with their ultra-new swimsuit. You'll recall from our previous posts that Arena first introduced the Powerskin R-Evolution. Well, they are now talking about the Powerskin R-Evolution Mark II, which is basically a prototype very similar to Speedo's LZR Racer - it has polyurethane panels to reduce drag, and compress the muscles, to apparently create a sensation of buoyancy.

Portas' own words: "Now we know the interpretation of the material is free, we have something ready," Portas told reporters. "It's the very first prototype, but the feeling of the suit is special."

Where does this leave swimming?

Also unsurprisingly, all the other manufacturers, TYR, Diana, Nike, Adidas and Mizuno are now free to do the same thing, and they presumably will. So expect more records to fall before the Olympics (the USA National trials are on the horizon, and I shudder to think how many records will fall there), and then of course, at the Games, the combination of swimsuits and peaking means records will be obliterated.

I would in fact not be surprised if the number of world records broken in
2008 reaches the 100 mark. If Speedo would like a slogan for their LZR Racer, they might consider "Speedo - wiping out 20 years of swimming history with one splash", or something similar, because while technology is great, this unprecedented spike in performance is effectively pushing the "Reset" button for swimming, and in five years time, we'll look at world records, and classify them as either PRE or POST "Material changes".

Is that good for swimming? Difficult to say. Personally, I'd love to see swimmers racing on an equal playing field (or pool), where the winner is the guy who has produced the higher force and the more efficient swim. The idea of a medal lost thanks to a suit seems to detract from performance a little to me. Having said that, in a perverse way, this latest development might at least ensure that we have some competition in the Olympics, because at least now, swimmers wearing anything but Speedo might have their own 2% performance advantages. So from a competitive point of view, this is a good thing. But for the sport, I'm not so sure. FINA have a problem on their hands.

Ross

Speedo Swimsuit debate

Speedo's LZR swimsuit: Approved by FINA and improving world records, except in one case...

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Be sure to visit our main page where we have daily analysis
and comment of the swimming and other events at Beijing 2008!

Yesterday, towards the end of the post, I mentioned that we'd leave the Speedo Swimsuit issue for a while, and pick it up again in a few weeks when the sport's governing body, FINA, meets with Speedo and other manufacturers to discuss the issue of new swimsuits. However, I received some interesting new information on the topic, so I thought I'd do a very short post on that, and then leave the footstrike one to tomorrow morning (SA time) instead.

Some more discussion on the Speedo LZR Racer

For those who've missed the story, in the last 39 days, 14 world records have been set in the pool, and 13 of them have been in the newly designed swimsuit by Speedo. Claims of 5% less drag, water repellant fabric, an "internal core stabilizer" which helps the swimmer maintain form towards the end of the race, and what are called "low-drag" panels where the flow of water is greatest have been made to explain what must be one of the more remarkable periods of record setting in the sport. Are there any swimming enthusiasts who know of similar periods where so many world records have been set in so short a time?

In any event, all these innovations add up to more efficient movement through the water. And this, of course, is the critical aspect in swimming, as has been discussed in the comments section to previous posts on the topic.

Earlier today, I received an article from Jim Ferstle, a journalist in the States who seems to be something of a "Maven" (read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell for the explanation!) when it comes to these stories. You can read that article here.

It provides a really fascinating summary of the issues, and presents facts in a logical way, so it's worth a read. What I find most interesting is the testing procedures that were followed. According to the report, over the last three years, testing involved:

• Wind tunnel testing at NASA to evaluate drag and stability in more than 60 candidate fabrics, including at a "microscopic" level.
  
• Over 1000 "flume" testing sessions in Otago, New Zealand, where dummy swimmers and real swimmers are placed in a flow of water to evaluate hydrodynamics
• Months of testing at the Australian Institute of Sport

What is more interesting, however is that during the development, Speedo apparently met with FINA and adhered to all the regulations for swim-suit design. If that is true, there is little chance of any action being taken now (not that there ever was), but it's interesting to note that many people within the sport (including FINA, amazingly!) are now raising concerns, when FINA (apparently) approved the development. One should not read too much into things, but this doesn't suggest equal access for all swimmers, federations and officials, either to information or to the actual swimsuit. For if FINA officials are now questioning the legality of the suit, then what process was followed to approve it to begin with? Clearly, they missed certain aspects which are only now being questioned - given the extent of the testing done, one would have thought that issues like buoyancy (which seems to be the big issue now) would have been resolved?

Is access to equipment going to be a problem?

One of the big fears is that some swimmers will be disadvantaged as a result of not having great equipment. For example, Canada's swimmers are going to have to do without the suit for a while. Despite being sponsored by Speedo, there are only a handful of the LZR Racers in Canada, and they are being passed around for trial use. They are promised the suit at a later stage, after the Canadian national trials, however. According to the coach of one of Canada's best swimmers, Brent Hayden, it's not a massive issue until Beijing, when it really will count, but there is without question concern. His quote, from this article:

"The only thing we don't want to be is to be feeling like we're being treated any less fairly than any of the countries in the world that have access to this suit," said Johnson. "But we were told that the suit wasn't available. The question now is: If it's not available, how come everybody has it?"

In their defence, Speedo Canada have said that they did not wish to have a situation where certain swimmers at the upcoming Canadian trials had the suit, but not others. That's fine, but those swimmers might well be asking why they are receiving suits months after rivals in Europe and Australia, having to settle instead for a few trial suits?

All this does not do much for the fear that the suit will divide the swimming world into "the haves" and the "have nots". This is a quote by Kieren Perkins, former 1500m legend and Olympic champion, which you can read the article described above.

Arena launches its new suit - the Powerskin R-Evolution: let the games begin

No sooner than this concern was raised, and another big player on the swimming stage entered the fray. I mentioned earlier that 14 records had been set, 13 of them in the Speedo LZR Racer. Well, the single record NOT set in the Speedo was set yesterday evening by Italy's Federica Pellegrini. She was wearing Arena's new swimsuit - the Powerskin R-Evolution. The name says it all, I guess! This is definitely a good thing - at least the competition in the market will achieve the goal of getting the best swimmers into SIMILAR suits. The playing field may yet be level, but only at the top end with the elite swimmers. The worst thing that could have happened is that Speedo was the only company innovating, and then nations with other sponsors would be handicapped from the start. Nike and Adidas are to launch their product soon, so there is hope yet for an "even" Olympic Final.

So it certainly seems we're heading for a technological battle come Beijing. Every second weekend, for six months of the year, I follow a sport where the technological battles rage and winning and losing is often a function of tyre choice, never mind the other $400 million dollars that goes into technological advancements - it's called Formula 1. Not to take anything away from the drivers, but with so much of the battle won OFF the track, the sport has a very different character/personality than swimming and running, where it's one athlete against another. Is swimming headed that way? One thing is for sure, I would hate to be the only guy in the Olympic Final not wearing a Powerskin or an LZR with "internal core stabliser" functions!

Then again, maybe it's not all positive...

Unless of course, you're Jess Schipper. The Australian butterfly swimmer, is actually blaming her Speedo LZR Racer for her failure to break the world record in the 200m butterfly event. Her reason? The suit apparently filled with water when she dived in, and forced her to slow down so much in the final 50m that she was almost caught by two rivals. Of course, given that she went out 1.34 seconds FASTER than the world record pace, there is a chance that she simply "blew" coming home and physiology explains the slow down. But for a great quote from this article:

"Schipper had started like a speedboat to be 1.34 seconds under world record pace at the 100m mark with an opening split of 58.77s. But she finished like a submarine to clock 2mins:06.82secs and finish over a second off her best (2:05.40)".

I'm not sure whether the "speed boat" first half is more a concern than the "submarine" second, but it's an interesting story of how sometimes, the most advanced technology in the world can undermine your efforts - imagine, a swimmer sunk by a "leak"! Or should that be a speedboat?

Ross

Speedo's LZR swimsuit

The Speedo LZR racer: feedback on a developing debate, and the value of technique

Welcome to the Science of Sport!
Be sure to visit our main page where we have daily analysis
and comment of the swimming and other events at Beijing 2008!

Thanks to all who have commented on yesterday's post, which focused mainly on the newly developed swimsuit by Speedo, the LZR Racer. This suit is making waves in the swimming world, since it has been worn for 9 out of 9 world records in the pool this year! Some coaches believe the issue of fairness needs to be debated, with calls for ethics debates around it.

Your comments have been very insightful, none more so than Jamie's, as he wrote in response to yesterday's post. I had not even thought of rowing as an example of a sport with similar equipment "advantages" possible. But his email gives a great example:

In rowing we also have an interaction with water and this aspect of the technique/training generally has a bigger impact than the physiology. FISA (our international federation) dealt with similar issues as swimming is going through in the 70's and 80's when some countries started using riblets running the length of the boats hull and also applied what was called "fish slime" which changed the properties of the hull/water interface and made significant difference in time (10 sec in a 6 min race).

The riblets were banned because of the expense as they were very easily damaged and had to be replaced often and the "fish slime" was banned as it was deemed a pollutant in the water

Our rules now say the following:
Bye-Law to Rule 31 - Boats and Equipment

1.4 No substances or structures (including riblets) capable of modifying the natural properties of water or of the boundary layer of the hull/water interface shall be used.

It would seem that the claims of Speedo/NASA indicate that with the new suits this boundary layer between the body/suit and the water is definitely modified. Whether FINA consider this unfair or not will be the deciding factor in the debate.

Input from an expert on swimming hydrodynamics

In addition, as I began writing the post yesterday, I contacted Prof Raul Arellano, who is based at the University of Granada in Spain. Arellano has spent years studying fluid movements during swimming, and has published numerous papers looking at propulsion and biomechanics of swimming, so he contributes to the specific debate around swimming with a far more experienced and educated eye than I can!

And his input is very interesting. I've pasted some of his response below, with my comments immediately following them.

The problem with the new swimsuits is that they improve the body shape much more than skin friction. And this improvement is very individual... the percentage improvement depends on the person's body shape. I have observed a master swimmer with a lot of fat around her abdominals reduce her time in 100m butterfly by 6 seconds to break the Master's world record. The changes in the body shape underwater using a smaller size full body swimsuit were clearly evident (the fat position was fixed and the perimeter reduced).

In yesterday's post, and in the news reports, a great deal was made of the reduced drag as a result of the LZR suit being seamless and consisting of new materials tested by NASA. This insight suggests that in fact, the suit's ability to reduce friction and drag may be minor compared to the improvement in body shape as a result of wearing the swimsuit. Is this analogous to the compression garments now being touted for team sports and explosive sport in particular? That came up in one of the comments to the previous post - of course, the effect would be substantially larger in the water, and the mechanism is different, but it's still intriguing.

In addition, Prof Arellano noted the following:

These changes [in performance] are much smaller in well trained top athletes, but enough to improve the performance some tenths of second. But you need to add some more things related to HiTech doping; for example, is the use of biomechanics HighTech doping? This tool is far less accessible than a swimsuit and so very few swimming teams use this kind of enhancing tool. We have observed changes in the start technique, changes in the underwater phase of the start and turns, changes in the stroke synchronization, changes in the body position, and so on.

In our experience testing top level swimmers at the end of one feedback and training workout to improve the swimming start, we obtained improvements of half a second in the 10m start time. Is this improvement doping? You can see the videos of Olympic champions during Munich 1972 or Seoul 1998 and you can observe very bad start and turn techniques, these changes can affect to the top performers much more than the use of new swimsuits.

For example, if you observe Michael Phelps' start and turns, he can obtain more than two seconds' advantage in 400m IM. The rest of competitors and their coaches can use the same turn technique as Phelps but they don't ? Why? ...Who knows?

Fascinating insight - what is being referred to here is that we may dwell on the swimsuit and its potential advantages, but there may be even bigger advantages gained through the use of biomechanical studies/methods and training to improve the technique of the swimmer, not during the stroke only, but also the start and turns. Of course, the debate still exists that two swimmers may be very closely matched in terms of physiology, biomechanics and technique, but the one in the faster swimsuit will win. And it is unfortunately a reality that not all swimmers will have equal access to the "possibly faster" swimsuit. As I mentioned yesterday, sponsorship agreements often dictate that swimmer cannot wear a Speedo, and that means the playing field may not necessarily be equal. Many individuals (including Alain Bernard, world record holder) have obatined individual sponsorships that opposed that of their federation (Bernard is a Speedo LZR man, the French team is sponsorsed by Arena). One thing that is for sure is that I would hate to be the sole swimmer not wearing the suit that is possibly worth one second in my Olympic final...

Why leave any stone unturned?

In any event, one thing that never ceases to amaze me is that there are, as Prof Arellano has pointed out, world class athletes who miss out on opportunities for improvement that they could use to gain seconds on their performance. And who knows why they would not? The case of the Speedo LZR once again highlights the fact that there are people who naturally embrace technology and innovation, and some who do not (or cannot, as the case may be). I know if I was swimming, I'd be embracing every single opportunity for improvement, even if it was unproven!

And then finally, Prof Arellano has noted the following with regards to Alain Bernard, the French swimmer who recently broke the 50m and 100m freestyle records. This is in the context of talking about the recently set world records and whether they are solely due to the new swimsuit:

At least I can observe clearly some technical aspects improved by some record holders before their impressive performances. Bernard, for his 50m and 100 m World record, significantly improved his start technique, getting the 1st place immediately from the start (this point improved more than half a second [from his France record in 100m free performed last season in France]. This is critical to be winner in the 50m or 100m events, where the waves generated by the rest of competitors can affect you in a magnitude (increasing your total drag) that is impossible to overcome keep up with the more quicker starters. You do not have enough energy to surpass the increased wave drag.

Interesting then that training, even in the day and age of superior technology can still make such a large difference. I recall that Roland Schoeman, South Africa's best swimmer at the Athens Olympics, stood out for his incredibly fast starts, that often had him a body length clear within the first 30 m of a 100m freestyle event. I find it astonishing that the other seven guys in the Olympic Final could be that comprehensively "outstarted", considering the importance of that aspect of the race. There are analogies and comparisons with many sports; I can think of a few cases where athletes have made very basic errors in preparation that would be easily resolved through simply listening.

And so like Prof Arellano, I have no answer for why more athletes would not develop these obviously crucial areas a little more than they have, and work on technique when it's apparently available to those who really want it. I suspect that part of the problem is that elite atheltes (and their management team) become quite insulated from the "voices" beneath them. And so they fail to hear or listen to anyone but the select few in direct contact with them. Thus, they often won't even perceive the possible benefits they might gain simply by listening to others.

Regardless, the swimsuit debate rages on, with a discussion between FINA and Speedo scheduled for the World Short Course Championships in a few weeks. Difficult to see how anything can be done now, unless they're prepared to scrap the world records set so far this year?

Looking ahead to the rest of the week...

That's it for the swimming for now - thanks to all who have commented and written in, feel free to throw your hat in the ring on this latest one.

But speaking of technique, it's back to running tomorrow, when I'll take a look at running technique, and specifically, the landing of the foot. Should you land on the forefoot? Or is heel striking the better option? We'll have a crack at that then.

As for the rest of the week, a big event on the weekend - World Cross Country championships in Edinburgh. The first big Championship clash of the year between Kenenisa Bekele and Zersenay Tadese. I'm sure that will warrant a post or two!

But for tomorrow, it's foot strike in running. Join us then!

Ross

For more discussion and analysis of the Speedo Swimsuit issue, click on the following links:

1. The Speedo LZR Racer: Introduction and debate: Does Speedo's "supersuit" make world records irrelevant? The line between "tech-doping" and innovation
2. Speedo's LZR: The role of swimming technique in progress - the suit or the style?
3. The swimsuit wars begin: Arena enters the fray, and what goes into suit design
4. Adidas launches its swimsuit: Are we watching swimmers or "human-powered boats"?
5. Arena attack Speedo: Arena seeks to have the Speedo LZR Racer banned
6. Arena's threat of legal action: Suddenly the integrity of the sport is at stake
7. World records disappear by EIGHT seconds: The swimming crisis