I saw competitively for 15 years. All swimmers from high school on up know that in a close race you need to hit the pad hard in order to trigger it quicker and more efficiently. That includes Phelps and all Olympic swimmers.

This is a debate about nothing, among people who are only just now learning about how swimming and touchpads work.

The bigger question that I can suss out is: is a system fair that could theoretically reward a marginally slower swimmer.

Depend on what a fair system is, I guess. Do you, as a swimmer, think it's fair that the close races go the the better pad-smacker?

As long as there isn't some more accurate objective measure, I have no problem with the pad-smacking criterion.

A close race? We're talking about 1/100th of a second! The person who touches the wall first wins, and unless Salaten's arguing that the sensor pad was somehow faulty, which he isn't, then game over.

What it sounds like Saletan's worried about--and what I could worry about--is that a slower swimmer with better pad technique could beat a faster swimmer that's sloppy at the pad.

I don't know how common this is, though, or whether swimmers would care.

l_hedoniste:

What it sounds like Saletan's worried about--and what I could worry about--is that a slower swimmer with better pad technique could beat a faster swimmer that's sloppy at the pad.

I don't know how common this is, though, or whether swimmers would care.

I'm not sure what "slower swimmer with better technique" means. I was a slower swimmer than lots of people,. but I had better flip turns, which won me alot of races. I also won and lost some on the touchpads. It's all part of the event.

l_hedoniste:

What it sounds like Saletan's worried about--and what I could worry about--is that a slower swimmer with better pad technique could beat a faster swimmer that's sloppy at the pad.

I don't know how common this is, though, or whether swimmers would care.

Hello? Hitting the pad is part of the race. Would you say that a long jumper who had a better foot-lifting technique instead of just jumping was unfair because he got an extra inch out of it? These aren't high school kids, they're olympic athletes. They ALL know ALL the tricks, and the winner is the best of them.

I'm not sure what "slower swimmer with better technique" means.I was a slower swimmer than lots of people,. but I had better flip turns, which won me alot of races. I also won and lost some on the touchpads. It's all part of the event.

Neither do I; I'm drawing the analogy from boxing, where you have some guys are knock-out artists, some are point boxers, and some are balanced.

Hitting the pad is part of the race. Would you say that a long jumper who had a better foot-lifting technique instead of just jumping was unfair because he got an extra inch out of it? These aren't high school kids, they're olympic athletes. They ALL know ALL the tricks, and the winner is the best of them.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The amount of technique varies from sport to sport, so that a sprinter who is fast and only fast is probably fine, yet could be severly limited as a long jumper because he can't learn technique. Which was the nut of my question: how much of swimming is a raw physical test, and how much is technique?

In the 100 meters, the first person who has part of their body break the line wins. So, run at the same speed but lunge at the end, you win. Same concept in swimming.

In case you've forgotten, Phelps was reeling Cavic in the last few meters. He made up considerable ground and by the last meter was pretty much even with Cavic. It's not like Phelps was way behind and out of nowhere appeared. Swimmers, as well as track sprinters, know that your start and finish is as important as everything in between. Phelps' reaction time to the gun was about .06 faster than Cavic. Even Cavic himself conceded that he had a weak finish saying that years from now he would probably regret not having a better finish, The point is, Phelps and Cavic were nearly even, but Phelps gained the advantage off the blocks and with a stronger finish. In no way was this the case of the "slower swimmer" winning the race.