Short Course Records Up for Grabs

Guest editorial by John Craig

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 12. NOW that Rome is behind us, a quick perusal of the long course vs. short course records indicates that a number of the latter are quite vulnerable. This has been proven already by the new short course records set this past week — and the World Cup season is still looming. Given that there is only a limited time left to take advantage of the artificial advantage proffered by the polyurethane suits, this should be an especially intense fall season.

A few of the short course records are on a par with the long course records. A case in point would be Amaury Leveaux's 100 free record of 44.94. In sprint freestyle, an extra turn seems to be worth roughly .7 of a second, which means that even with the two extra turns Leveaux's short course record may even be better than Cielo's long course 46.91. (Remember, Popov held both 100 records for a long time with a 46.74 and 48.21.) This past weekend, Roland Schoeman went a 20.30 for the scm 50, which seems pretty close to Bousquet's 20.94.

Biedermann's short course standard of 1:40.83 for the 200 free now looks slow next to his long course standard of 1:42.00. Even if you conservatively estimate an extra flip turn for freestyle as being worth only .5 of a second, Biedermann could still conceivably be the first man to go under 1:40 short course. (Thorpe's best 200s were 1:41.1 and 1:44.0, which would indicate he gained roughly .7 per turn, although he once said that he thought his short course record the better swim.)

The men's backstroke spreads are 1.17 seconds for the 50, 2.74 for the 100, and 4.08 for the 200. Those scm records may fall by the end of the year as well, but none look particularly soft, even though an extra backstroke turn is worth more than an extra freestyle turn (because you're gaining comparatively more on the pushoff and the dolphin kicks since the stroke itself is slower).

The men's scm breaststroke look quite fast now that Cameron van der Burgh has reset his own 50 and 100 this past weekend. The spreads between the men's sprint breast records are 1.24 for the 50 and 2.19 for the 100, which translates to approximately 1.1 seconds per turn, which sounds about right. (If anything, I'd say the scm records are now better than the lcm records.) Christian Sprenger just went a 2:01.98 a few days ago in Australia, making it a clean sweep for the scm breast records this past weekend. The spread between his scm and lcm records is now 5.33 seconds (I'd give his scm record the edge.) Ed Moses's previous 200 scm record of 2:02.92, set in old-fashioned jammers, says to me that Moses was ahead of his time back in 2004. (It also says he was a better short course swimmer than long.)

The men's fly spreads are .25 for the 50, .75 in the 100, and .48 in the 200. One would think the advantage per fly turn is roughly the same as breaststroke, close to a second. (On the one hand, the advantage of the pushoff for fly is less since that stroke is faster, but on the other you do get more dolphin kicks). So all three fly records look quite soft. The latter two may be apples to oranges, however, since Phelps has never bothered with the World Cup circuit or, for that matter, to compete scm in any setting. And given that Bowman has said that this will be Phelps's hardest training year before the Olympics, it's doubtful that he will be peaking for any scm meets any time soon. (Cavic may take up the slack in the 100, but expect the 200 records to remain out of sync.)

The men's IM spreads are 2.54 in the 200, and 4.51 in the 400. The men's 200 will probably fall this year. Given that the lcm 400 IM is another Phelps record, that's another apples to oranges situation. Lochte, Cseh, and Clary are all capable of breaking the 3:59.33 scm record currently held by Cseh, but they would have to be at their best to do it.

For the women, the sprint free records look a little soft. The spreads are 23.73 to 23.25, and 52.07 to 51.01. If Steffen decides to swim a 100 scm in a serious way, she ought to be able to Hydrofoil her way under 51 seconds. The 200 spread is 1.13 (Pellegrini vs. herself) and in the 400, 4.23 (Pellegrini vs. Jackson, after this weekend). Pellegrini should get both if her attention isn't too distracted by the Italian media – which it may well be, judging from the look of things in Rome two weeks ago.

The women's backstroke spreads are .83 for the 50, 1.97 for the 100, and 3.90 for the 200 (both Coventry's). The scm records are all breakable, with the 50 being softest. Look for Spofforth, who set her WR of 58.12 in the lcm 100 in a LZR, to take a shot at both the 100 and 200 records.

The women's breaststroke spreads are .22 for the 50 (both Hardy's, after this weekend), .73 in the 100, and 3.42 in the 200 (both recent records by Pierse). The sprint scm breaststroke records should see large drops by December. (I'm not sure what the status of Hardy's new lcm records are given her suspension, but have used her recent times for the above comparisons.)

The women's fly spreads are .08 in the 50, .32 in the 100, and .29 in the 200. These are way, way out of whack, and all the short course records should see significant drops this year.

In the women's IMs, the spreads are .02 in the 200 (!), and 4.39 in the 400. Both scm IM's are obviously out of line as well, especially the 200 after Kukors' ridiculous swim in Rome.

Given that the next four and a half months are last call for the tech suits, we may see some swimmers who normally don't even compete on the World Cup circuit try for some scm records.

The madness is not over yet. (This writer is wholeheartedly for the ban on the new suits, but acknowledges that next year, even though it will come as a relief, will also seem awfully anticlimactic to swimming fans.)

John Craig set a WR in the men's 55-59 200 scm butterfly of 2:19.72 this past March. That record has been made to look embarrassingly soft by Brad Horner, who this past weekend set the lcm version of the 200 fly record in the same age group with a 2:18.97.

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