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In swimming in the new millennium even the water is high-tech
SYDNEY, Sept 24 (AFP) - Suits that mimic shark skin, ozone-filtered water, nutritionists, psychologists and biomechanists -- Olympic swimming in the new millenium is a high-tech extravaganza. Start with the Olympic pool at Sydney International Aquatic Centre, where 15 world records were set or equalled in eight days of competition. Swimmers love the pool; its double filtered water is less irritating and its list of wave-reducing features, from extra lanes to textured walls to precisely engineered lane ropes, all but eliminate speed-reducing wash. Many of them also love their new bodysuits, once they wriggle into them, for an added sense of buoyancy, a slight bit of fatigue-reducing muscle compression, and the feel of water flowing past which converts to the new suits say surpasses the feeling of slipping through the water in the old swimmers' standby of freshly shaved skin. The swimmers themselves are also scientific marvels, products of acute scrutiny that results in minute adjustments to every aspect of their swimming technique, their diet, their in-pool and dry-land training. At the Games themselves, researchers using video cameras and computers collected data on start reactions, stroke rates, and turn and finish efficiency, and made it available to swimmers in time to prepare for their next race. Top coaches today know their swimmers' precise body-fat percentage. They calculate recovery time by measuring how much lactic acid builds up in their swimmers' muscles in a race or in training. They hire nutritionists to coordinate complicated programmes of protein, vitamin and mineral supplements -- or they buy supplements originally designed for race horses. US team director Dennis Pursley said the scientific advances have made swimmers faster and more consistent. But he said there would always be an element of the unpredictable in swimming,. "With all the science involved, and there's a lot more now than there's ever been before, it's still a crap shoot," Pursley said.
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