Middle lanes are faster, and for some reason swimmer with the fastest record gets the middle in most events, which always seemed weird to me -- it's a positive feedback system. Seems like you should give the advantage to the people who are behind, not ahead... but that's common in sports and in modern society for some reason.

Any turbulence created by waves and vortices smashing into hard surfaces is going to slow the swimmer down. To paraphrase an old adage, smooth is fast.

Indeed, and as a consequence there are rules for who gets which lane.

You can't reward failure in competition. You will get people purposely going slower to get the middle lanes. What they could swim in a pool in which they aren't using the outer lanes, so bigger pools, or less swimmers.

A few years ago I tried out TikTok and quickly came to see that there are huge niches inside the platform that are barely even searchable or existent outside the app. One of which was these videos of people sprinting or galloping on all fours. It's fascinating and terrifying seeing people who've practiced do the movements, it's uncanny in both how natural and unnatural it can look. It seems to be an intersection of unconventional exercise enthusiasts and furry-types.

Sprinting: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6S0ctkOixj8

Galloping / jumping: https://old.reddit.com/r/toptalent/comments/ldxsoz/these_peo...

I just went down a small rabbit hole, watching some videos of quadrupedal running, and what struck me was how un-balanced the motion looked. Even the guy who is (one of) the world's fastest has this weird twist in his back while he is doing it, to make sure his knees and elbows don't smack together. That may be sustainable when you are young and strong, but I worry this guy, or anyone else who gets into this, is going to be wracked with long-term damage and in a lot of pain when older.

Ryuta Kinugasa, Yoshiyuki Usami. "How Fast Can a Human Run? Bipedal vs. Quadrupedal Running." Frontiers of Bioengineering and Biotechnology 4:56 (June 2016).

That looks remarkably like an April Fool's article released at the wrong time of year. The second-to-last paragraph is where they reveal the joke to anyone who wasn't already in on it:

> This study has limitations. Although statistical models are significantly related to mathematical formula [sic], the use of a statistical model to accurately predict future athletic performance is challenging (Hilbe, 2008). Fitted linear models should be treated with some caution. The use of linear regression for world record modeling would yield a continued decline that would eventually become negative, thus suggesting that update of world records can be continued until 0 s. It must also be noted that quadrupedal world records did not exist before 2008. This relatively recent involvement [sic] of quadrupedal running results in a somewhat tenuous comparison of world record times. Therefore, despite a high coefficient of determination, a large diverging confidence interval was found.—

—and then right back into it—

> —The 95% confidence intervals [sic] indicates that projected intersects could occur as early as in 2032 (9.238 s) or as late as 2076 (9.341 s).

A "rebuttal paper" might accept their major premise (i.e. feasibility of "a statistical model to accurately predict future athletic performance") but argue that rather than fitting a straight line (linear regression), we should fit an exponential decay curve (exponential regression). In an appendix, we'd try fitting a hyperbola (y = K1/(x-X0) + K2), taking X0 for quadrupedal running at 2008 and X0 for bipedal running anywhere from 2 million to 10 million years ago.

In an alternative "experimentalist approach," the rebuttal paper's author would actually run 100m himself, first on two legs and then on four; plot these as an additional data point (with x=2025) in each set; and fit a polynomial to that data. This would likely change the conclusion quite drastically. ;)

I’m going to wait and see with that one.

I had no idea how enormous moose were until I had to go to Fairbanks a few years ago for a work thing. It was unreal sitting in line waiting to move through the gate at the air base and seeing a moose casually running down along the 8 foot fence along the perimeter and realizing it was taller than the fence!

That doesn’t surprise me though, considering our ancestors and almost all of our closest relatives are arboreal. We are descended from climbers. Our lack of climbing ability relative to other primates makes us the odd ones out.

> The dynamism of the human body is why we thrive in so many environments.

I'd say it's our hand to make tools, our brain to plan, and out throat/mouth to communicate

I would definitely consider beavers to be at least partially aquatic, considering they lodge in aquatic environments and need to live near water.

In what sport does she compete for Germany? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Klz5qncZQ

A swim coach told me that in 1950s people used to do the first lap of breaststroke underwater but people kept passing out. It wasn't safe for youth sports.

Being interesting for participants is not enough?

The usual argument against clothing restrictions (see also supershoes in running and various aero stuff in cycling) is that you want the sport to reward the best athletes rather than turning into a technological arms race. This is especially complicated in sports where people don't get to choose their own gear and so (for instance), whether you have access to the best shoes depends on who your sponsor is. Back when Nike was first rolling out the first supershoes, you would sometimes see athletes sponsored by other brands actually wear Nikes with the logo blacked out, because it was just such a big advantage.

As another comparison point, look at Formula 1, where technology is a huge part of the competition, with the result that a driver can be dominant one year and then fall way back the next because of some technological shift. Of course, even F1 does tinker with the rules a lot to try to preserve competition, as when they banned electronic stabilization.

> there exist clothing restrictions in Olympic swimming

My argument against this is that there are already so many activities where less wealthy are priced out. Most prospective athletes (or families) don't have a bunch of money to shell out for stuff like hydrophobic full-body suits, or hockey gear, or whatever.

the backstroke rule change was circa 1988. They changed butterfly (and I suppose freestyle) after the 96 Olympics when Dennis Pankratov won both butterflies with this technique. Interestingly, the backstroke innovator who probably triggered the earlier rule change got beat in the final by someone not using it (Berkhoff in 88, silver)

The latest rule change in this area was banning dolphin kicks on your back on the breast-to-free exchange in IM. Ryan Lochte triggered that one.

I was thinking of optimized movement patterns to increase efficiency / reduce wasted energy. This numberphile video explains how fish and other swimming animals barely lose any energy, even though they create vortices, because the vortices are in turn used to propel the fish forward.

https://youtu.be/wYDh5d9pfu8?si=TkPs2xcngduz_Qem&t=600

The walking race is the only one where there are specific rules. The other races just happen to mostly favor a style. Sprint finishes in long distance races are common and legal

The rule is only on the IM; freestyle can't be butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke.

I couldn’t agree more!

My daughter’s school had a race day to wrap up their swimming lessons, and one of the events involved rolling from front to back every second stroke. It was funny to watch but not very practical.

It is also my favorite, despite being the hardest due to the high skill required to do the proper technique. It is so awesome to feel so powerful.

> Seeing backwards running races would be impressive.

For cars, such races seem to exist (have existed?) in the Netherlands:

> Dutch Reverse Racing

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLgPTJWAysY

These kinds of races seemed to be popular in the Netherlands because DAF (a Dutch manufacturer) produces the Variomatic transmission system

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic

"Because the system does not have separate gears, but one (continuously shifting) gear and a separate 'reverse mode' (as opposed to reverse gear), the transmission works in reverse as well, giving it the side effect that one can drive backwards as fast as forwards. As a result, in the former Dutch annual backward driving world championship, the DAFs had to be put in a separate competition because no other car could keep up."

Diagonal running!

Ahhhh, after reading this, I think the part I was missing is swimming events aren't general w/r/t method

i.e. I'm familiar with track and field - it's "transport yourself X distance, fastest time wins"

With swimming, its "transport yourself X distance using method Y"

And you could have used the methods described in a race where method Y == backstroke at some point, as the requirements for backstroke were such that you just did a couple things quick, then could go underwater and do your thing till you finish...but that workaround is no longer available given the 15m rule.

(ty all)