French Nationals

[ringer]

Spotted this heat result this morning from The French Nationals at Tours.

200 Brasse Dames Séries
1. BALFOUR Kirsty 1984 GBR CS CLICHY 92 2:31.75 +0.90 1317 pts
2. DE RONCHI Sophie 1985 FRA ES MASSY NATATION 2:32.88 +0.84 1302 pts
3. JAUBERT Justine 1989 FRA AC HYERES 2:34.21 +0.91 1285 pts
4. DISTEL Marjorie 1977 FRA CN MELUN VAL DE SEINE 2:34.33 +0.93 1283 pts
5. TADD Stacey 1989 GBR CS CLICHY 92 2:35.84 +1.04 1263 pts
6. LOUGHIN Clara 1986 FRA CN EPINAL

Interesting that these two appear to be members of CS Clichy 92. I trust this is an initiative purely to satisfy entry criteria rather than an indicator that the swimmers are disaffected.

[ringer]

My initial concerns have dissipated. The start lists for the various events have a sprinkling of GB names entered, predominantly (but not exclusively)from the Clichy club. Gibson Mew and Cozens are there among others.

Here's the web link.......an easy to navigate site.

http://www.liveffn.com/live/index.php?go=&idcpt=106&idlng=fra

[lost_in_finland]

manadou 400 fr WR! 4.03.03!

[croberts]

I was beaten to announcing it!

I knew after her prelim swim that something very very special was coming. Thats an absolutely amazing swim! Would love to see a video.

[Linny]

manadou 400 fr WR! 4.03.03!Fantastic!

But, you know the main thing that goes through my mind here is "What a relief!" No more will we have to hear about how it is the oldest record in the book and how swimmers are under world record pace at the half way mark knowing full well that the likelihood of them negative splitting is almost nil.

Hoorah!

So who is for that 800 then?

[Curly]

Fantastic result for her!

I see a very strange team won the 4x100m freestyle relay for CS Clichy 92 - Ros Brett, Julia Beckett, Alena Popchanka, Hanna Shcherba - pity no splits!

[lane4]

No more will we have to hear about how it is the oldest record in the book
Well if we did hear that it would be wrong anyway because it was not.

[lost_in_finland]

maybe toughest record, not the oldest...

[Taxiandbank]

maybe toughest record, not the oldest...
Janet Evans 1500 m free 26 march 1988 15:52.10

[NotVeryFast]

Well, if the commentator who said it's the oldest record were commentating at the Olympics, then it seems reasonable for them to only be considering Olympic events, so the 1500 record wouldn't count.

[Vincent]

manadou 400 fr WR! 4.03.03!

Felicitations a Laure Manaudou! :king: (La Marseillaise is ringing...)

According to the "french" message board and news, she did not really expect it, the real plan was to set it at the Europeans, but I guess WRs just come without saying :)

[Taxiandbank]

Fantastic result for her!

I see a very strange team won the 4x100m freestyle relay for CS Clichy 92 - Ros Brett, Julia Beckett, Alena Popchanka, Hanna Shcherba - pity no splits!
Large numbers of Brits swimming. I hope they have all been sanctioned in accordance with the European Championships selection policy.
4.8. Swimmers wishing to take holiday or attend overseas camps and/or competitions between the Trials and the European Long Course 2006 must gain prior written approval from the Great Britain Head Coach.

[Katie]

Wellllllll they're mainly from Loughborough so I'd imagine it's ok! :)

[Curly]

What a fantastic swimmer Laure Manadou is - she has just swum 16.03.01 in the 1500m and, assuming the results are in the order they were swum, probably some 25 minutes later she has swum 1.01.73 to win the 100m backstroke and is no doubt going to finish with a little relay swim of some note!

[Bazza]

Fantastic swim, and she is now an even bigger star in France, which must be great for swimming. Not sure about the suggestion she will be the first woman to break four minutes though...

[Steve]

Fantastic swim, and she is now an even bigger star in France, which must be great for swimming. Not sure about the suggestion she will be the first woman to break four minutes though...
Because you don't think any woman will break four minutes or because you think that it will be another (presumably as yet unknown) swimmer?

[Bazza]

Because I don't think it will happen in the next few years. Obviously Laure is young and could theoretically be around for 10 years but it's taken 18 years for someone else to go 4:03, I think 3:59 is some way off for the moment.

[Steve]

Because I don't think it will happen in the next few years. Obviously Laure is young and could theoretically be around for 10 years but it's taken 18 years for someone else to go 4:03, I think 3:59 is some way off for the moment.
I'd go with that - I think that the event will need a few swimmers pushing each other along for the 4 minute barrier to go and at the moment there just isn't anyone within 10m of Manaudou

[NotVeryFast]

Because I don't think it will happen in the next few years. Obviously Laure is young and could theoretically be around for 10 years but it's taken 18 years for someone else to go 4:03, I think 3:59 is some way off for the moment.
You can't compare the rate of progression of world records with the rate of an individual's improvement. World records progress as new individuals come along because as time goes on, the probability of a person being born who is at the extreme end of the statistical curve increases. Janet Evans was obviously at the extreme end of the distribution of abilities, so it is to be expected that it would take a while for someone even further along the statistical curve to be born. But the important thing is that what has happened before gives you no information at all about Laure Manaudou's potential. She is an individual, and her potential is hers alone. She could be the next Janet Evans, an anomaly whose records will not be broken for another 18 years. Or she could be an even greater anomaly whose records will stand for 50 years. Only time will tell.

[Bazza]

Agreed, but what has happened before is generally a guide as to what might happen in the future. We live in the most competitive age of world swimming, and the fields are getting closer all the time. But there are still only 3 other women in the last 10 years who have swum under 4:06, and none of them have broken 4:05. It seems unlikely to me that one person will break 4:00 before several start swimming at least 4:03s and 4:04s.

In the longer distance events you do tend to get bigger gaps - look at people like Thorpe and Phelps and how far ahead of others they have been and this suggests Manaudou could do it soon, however again looking back, Tracey Wickham did 4:06.28 in 1978 then Janet Evans did 4:03.85 in 1988. Now Manaudou has finally broken her time, but everyone knows how amazing Janet Evans' performances were, and it seems unlikely (not impossible) to me that Manaudou will be able to better her performances by 4 seconds.

Another consideration is that only two women have broken 4:00 shortcourse, although Manaudou's rather amazing 3:56 does suggest she has a shot.

[NotVeryFast]

I've had some more time to think about it, so I'll expand on how I would model the progression of World Records. I see there as being two fundamental drivers to an individual's performance:
1. Ability of the individual
2. Quality of environment

The ability of the individual is basically a point sampled from a normal distribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
The normal distribution that is being sampled from will change very slowly over time, i.e. the average level of ability in the population is only changing very slowly, probably at a similar rate to that at which the average human height is increasing.

However, the global population is increasing, so each year we are sampling more points from the distribution than we did the previous year, and this increases the expected ability of the most able person in the population, as does the gradual shift in the distribution over time.

But the major way in which individual ability improves over time is due to accumulating more and more samples as time goes on. It's a bit like rolling a dice - if you want the highest number, then your first roll will be the world record. It could be a 6, it might not be. The more times you roll it, the more samples you have, and the greater the chance that you will have rolled a 6 at some point. The most able swimmers are analogous to rolling a 6, though of course there is an infinite range of ability levels for swimming. But just because eventually a more able swimmer will come along, doesn't mean that the most able swimmer at any point in time is necessarily the most able swimmer ever, indeed it would actually be expected that you would go for significant periods between new "most able ever" swimmers appearing.

So that covers aspect 1, individual ability. I believe that aspect 2, environmental quality, has actually been the biggest driver in world record progression in recent decades. Better pool design, better lane ropes, better swimwear, better nutrition, better knowledge of how to train, these are all factors that will result in an individual today swimming faster than one of identical ability 20 years ago.

So, I believe that if we could measure the improvement in environmental quality since 1988, that would tell us how fast Janet Evans would swim today, if she had been born 18 years later. The only uncertainty then would be whether Laure Manaudou's ability is greater or less than Janet Evans'. However, determining the improvement in environmental quality is hard, particularly when it isn't known what drugs have been used by which swimmers in the past. Not knowing the ability of any particular individual is also a problem, though this could be mitigated by taking the average of the top 10 times from each year, say.

[rubberduckie]

Im always happy to see the women 110% of the mens time.For the 400 that would be 4.02.

The materials /design technology boosted the women in the 70s way below the 110%. Recent innovations have helped the men more -giving bouyancy ,compression & streamling.Its allowed them to be bigger ,heavier & constrained lactic acid disbursing.

But the women are on the move again.Im thinking 4.01.4 for Beijing Gold & 8.17 for the 800 & 1.55.9 for the 200 gold but 1.55.5 in relay. The 800 is the more difficult wr.

The French are doing very well.(Im impressed by those 7.52s) Thats why we are sending a team of 26 for the Mare Nostrum series. Should be great.

[lane4]

I'm surprised geochuck has not been contributing to this thread given his previous interest in predicting how fast females would swim in the future. ;)

[GettingFaster]

I'm surprised geochuck has not been contributing to this thread given his previous interest in predicting how fast females would swim in the future. ;)

I was wondering how long it'd take YOU to pipe up with that one! :p ;)

[Roro]

The video of the manaudou's WR is available here :
http://www.ffnatation.fr/media/videos/record_monde_400nl_laure_manaudou.rm

I was in the swimming pool during the race. Unforgettable and intense. :)
and here the mythical performance of janet evans : http://speedoms.free.fr/forum/Evans.wmv