"Are they dirty" by Scaq Swimmer John Q.

My informal SCAQ; (workout attendees), poll finds that about half of the swimmers I ask think the current batch of world records are because most swimmers are "dirty" and the other half "clean".

As someone who swam his first age-group meet in 1962 or '63 I can point to a series of "tipping points" in the advancement/evolution in swimming training, technique and technology. There is a great piece of footage from the 1964 Games in the film Tokyo Olympiad where Dawn Fraiser; (first woman under a minute for the 100 free), is shown doing an open turn at the 50 and immediately lifting her head and taking a breath; no one thought about streamlining in 1964.

The US Trials in '64 were held in the Astoria Queens NY public pool that was not an official 50 meter pool but a large, mostly shallow pool with bulkheads set up for the competition (built in 1936 and still in use today) . There were no non-turbulence lane lines. 5,000 yards in a day was considered a long workout. Between 1964 and '68 a number of major changes occurred:

1) overdistance training was adopted and the daily regimen often meant five hours in the pool

2) Counsilman challenged a new generation of coaches to actually examine and re-examine technique, a movement that continues to challenge conventional thinking and apply scientific rigor to the process, leading, for example, to the radical notion that a swimmer can swim faster underwater and starting with David Berkoff in the late '80's evolving to Natalie Coughlin et al in the '00's;

3) weight training was introduced and became standard in the 70's

4) pool technology and new sources of funding saw an unprecedented building boom starting in the 80's of true olympic size training facilities, often indoor

5) rules changes on turns (backstroke) and hand and kicking rules relaxed in breaststroke and the list goes on. Consider also that in 1984 when Dara Torres was first an Olympian, she did not have a nutritionist, two full-time stretchers and two private coaches for both her swimming and dry land training, not to mention the financial resources to enable her to do all that.

So a few may be "dirty" but most are beneficiaries in the continuing evolution of the sport that in 1968 thought the Belmont Plaza pool, site of Olympic Trials that year, was state of the art but today cannot qualify to host a national or meaningful regional competition; too shallow, lanes too narrow, no separate warm-up pool etc.