COMMENTARY
SCOTT SOSHNICK
Records are made to be broken. We accept that truism, especially in sports. Even so, this is getting a tad silly, don't you think?
Bob Beamon's long jump of 29 feet, 2-1/2 inches stood for 23 years. One of the records set at the US Olympic swimming trials lasted, oh, less than 2 minutes. In all, nine world records in seven events were either broken or equalled.
You can argue the athletes are bigger and stronger. I spent some time last week with baseball hall-of-famer Whitey Ford, who is Lilliputian when compared with most of today's pitchers. Only that isn't the whole story.
This isn't about talent. It's about technology.
Let's start with swimming, where the buzz isn't limited to the phenomenal Michael Phelps, who by the time the Beijing Games close may possess more gold medals than any athlete in history.
Everyone's talking about Speedo's LZR Racer, which, critics say, illegally aids flotation. FINA, the sport's governing body, has approved the swimsuit for competition. That, however, hasn't stopped Italian team coach Alberto Castagnetti - whose team wears suits by an Italian maker - from calling the LZR "technological doping".
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| Michael Phelps models the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit, which critics have called "technological doping". |
I was at the press conference when Speedo introduced the LZR Racer, which was modelled that day by, among others, Phelps, who stood in the spotlight, arms outstretched. There was loud music, bright lights and talk of drag coefficient.
Sports Illustrated points out that in the first six months of 2004, the last Summer Olympics year, one swimming long-course world record was eclipsed. Before the trials, 20 records fell, 19 of them by swimmers using the LZR Racer, which is the result of three years and millions in research and development.
The new suit makes it all but impossible to measure Phelps, or anyone else, against their predecessors. You have to wonder what the stopwatch would've read had Mark Spitz donned an LZR Racer in 1972.
I had to chuckle the other day while talking with Nike brand president Charlie Denson, who was telling me about the uniform that the US basketball teams will wear at the Olympics.
The new design eliminates 25 centimetres (9.8 inches) of material and reduces weight by 31% when compared with previous uniforms. And you thought LeBron James could jump high before? The uniform also features something called Aerographics: an engineered mesh that provides zoned cooling that reduces up to half the yarn.
Wait, that's not all. Kobe Bryant, the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player, will be wearing a shoe called the USA Nike Hyperdunk, which is 18% lighter than the average Nike basketball shoe.
Chew on this: Nike developed a "system of dress" for track and field athletes, too, featuring socks, gloves and arm coverings. The socks and arm coverings have dimpled fabrics that, like a golf ball, cut wind resistance. Compared with bare skin, the gloves and arm coverings reduce drag by 19% and the socks by 12.5%.
Yes, really.
It's all a bit much. The essence of competition should centre on what an athlete can do, not what he or she is wearing or what equipment is being used.
Golf balls fly farther these days. Clubs have bigger sweet spots. None other than Jack Nicklaus has long been a critic of equipment advances and their changes to the game.
Today's equipment, whether it's the grooves on a golf club or the material used to make a tennis racket or hockey stick, masks player weaknesses. Just ask hockey goaltenders if their nightmares centre on flying rubber.
This isn't to say that skills don't matter. Of course they do, just not as much as a decade ago. Martina Navratilova says the tennis rackets of today allow for a lot more spin. Racket technology, she said, is akin to a baseball player changing from a wooden bat to a graphite bat. We all know what would happen.
"The tennis manufacturers have dictated to us what kind of tennis we watch, which means power, power, power," Navratilova said. "You have to limit the equipment. It's got a little too much."
Maybe less is more. The ancient Greeks weren't about technological swimsuits. Just birthday suits.
"The Greeks pared it to the essence. Nudity was essential," said Tony Perrottet, author of The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games.
You have to wonder how many records would fall in Beijing if athletes made such a fashion statement again.
"I'm not sure," Perrottet said. "But they'd certainly get audience numbers up."
What a great opportunity for NBC to educate the masses on the finer points of drag coefficient.
Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
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