The NY Times blog, Room for Debate, has an interesting discussion about the longstanding question of whether new equipment is changing the very nature of some sports. We’ve seen it in Tennis for sure. It’s a totally different sport today than in the wooden racket era. We see it in golf. In recent years, the sport that has suffered or enjoyed (depending on your opinion) the most dramatic impact from equipment is swimming where world records are dropping by the dozen.
A couple outtakes:
I’m washed up. I’m not bitter because my best times don’t stack up to what we are seeing today. I’m a guy that romanticized the sport of swimming being as simple as man versus the element of water. It used to be the swimmer in the suit, not the suit on the swimmer. How times have changed.
— Gary Hall Jr. three-time OlympianSome talk of “evolution.” But what we have seen in the past year in swimming is not evolution but the death of one sport and the birth of an impostor that has a wholly different nature. The suit is king, not the athlete or the coach.
— Craig Lord, swimming journalist
