I remember watching Phelps in the finals of the sprint free, he looked small at 6'5". Sun Yang is 6'8", Greivers is 6'8 or and back9" so there is the distance events covered. It just doesnt seem that anyone under 6' are on those final blocks anymore, no matter what the event. Perhaps breast stroke, but I think those guys are big now too, forget about 5 footers....

Funny you should post this now

Just last week I was amazed how well some short 5’ 5” Japanese swimmers were doing at a championship race I was watching on TV

The gist of the study is that top-level don't significantly differ in BMI across disciplines. Or, in other words, differing swim disciplines appear to have roughly the same optimal BMI.

In the concluding paragraph of the article, the author seems to suggest that this implies that different body types don't convey significant advantages as long as the BMI is similar. This does not seem to be a consequence of the study's claims.

I think the point of the article was that body type matters less in swimming that in running, where if you are stocky (whether muscle or fat) you have a distinct disadvantage against those thin whispy types that don't have to fight with gravity.

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Strava

Generally, i think you are indeed correct and this study is off, not only in the height hypothesis but in the BMI numbers. Most top swimmers, male or female, are not light enough to have those BMIs as they generally have a good bit of muscle plus some fat. However, one exception i can think of to the height thing is Sheila Taormina, who is only 5'2.5", yet swam on the winning 4 x 200 free relay in the '96 Oly. IIRC, her best 200 LCM time was around 2:00 flat, which would be around 1:45-46 for 200 yd. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I think the article is talking more about BMI than height per se, but there have been several "non-tall" swimmers who have been successful. For example, Janet Evans is 5'5" and Dave Berkoff is 5'9".

Have you seen the 60m and 100m running guys that line up? They are ripped and muscular...far from whispy. I would even call guys like Coleman stocky.

Erik Vendt.. 5'11 ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Vendt


i remember hearing stories about Erik knocking out 20x1000 yards @ 10:30 finishing his last one at 9:50

They single out sprinters (for running) in the article. The point of the article was that body type matters less in swimming in terms of what distance you can excel in - muscular athletes can be good at the 50 and 10k open water simultaneously. In running however it's very rare to be good at the 100m dash and marathon simultaneously because each requires a distinct body type.

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Strava

Without reading the actual study, the authors concluding statement appears to be a gross elaboration on the real analysis. To me it seems like he just did his best to take a study that shows "elite swimmers will have a BMI around 23" and twist it into a "feel-good" story saying that anyone can be a professional swimmer regardless of body type.

While there have been fantastic swimmers that are short, they're the exception to the standard. Same as short sprinters in track, or tall gymnasts.

Of course one doesn't need to have the same body type as the elites to compete in a sport, but it certainly doesn't hurt. And when it comes to being elite and every little piece matters, there is a reason that athletes tend to have a similar build in their respective sports.

A google search reveals that Joseph Schooling (won the 100 Fly at the last Olympics) is pretty generously listed at 6 feet. He definitely looked more than 4 inches shorter than Phelps when he was standing on the podium.

In looking at world class runners, sprinters are big and the longer the race, the smaller the runners get.

Looking at world class swimmers, they all seem to be the same size (same BMI) regardless of the length of the race.

Therefore, you can be short and be world class at swimming.

Maybe the details of the study are a bit more nuanced but the Time's summary would get you an "F" on a logic test.

Therefore, you can be short and be world class at swimming

On a side note, it's one thing to see how small Olympic/world class gymnasts look on TV, but to see them up close is another. The US Championships are here in Boston this week at TD Garden and I sometimes take the commuter rail to North Station (at the ground level of the arena) in to work. Yesterday morning as I am walking out of the station, two of the male gymnasts are walking into the building for the practice session and passed by me. I'm 6'2" and these two were about a foot shorter than me even though they both looked like they were in their early 20's.

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

Im assuming that the Times article was in reference to this:

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/...nt/285/1882/20180684

What this article used as a data source was the BMIs of 2012 OLYMPIC SWIMMING COMPETITORS. So, this is already slanted towards the body type of the swimmers that are ALREADY swimming in the Olympics. Data is a funny thing.

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

My BMI is ~23.

Josh Prenot and Jordan Willamovsky both in the 5 10 range I believe. Katinka Hozzsu is probably average height maybe 5 6 or 5 7 but super buffed. Giles Smith is a sprint flier and is under 6 foot. The best one I came up with is Justin Wright who was national champ in 200M fly he is listed as 5 7.

My theory is that its partly the wingspan to height ratio that can give you an advantage but just speculating.

Lung capacity increase with height more than frontal area does. Case closed.

When I swam in college in the 80's breastsrokers would often be fireplugs (think Lundquist, looked like a linebacker) and backstrokers weren't all tall yet.
Now, I think some of the rule changes have eleminated that. Most all good swimmers are tall. Sure, some shorter ones have success; but most are tall.

My college BMI was 25.4 maybe that's why I didn't make it to NCAA's?

(And BMI by itself is a crock. That BMI is overweight and yet my measured body fat was 8.8%)

My coach said basically the same thing -- if your fingertips are near your knees, you have the best morphology for a swimmer. Then he said Sorry to me b/c I am not even close (shorter than Sally). That just means I have to try twice as hard.

Of course, outliers for every parameter exists. But all else being equal, a taller swimmer will be faster than a shorter one. On average, between 5'10 and 6'6 lung volume increases by ~40% whereas frontal area increases by ~30%. Aditionally, skin area increases only ~15%.

Somewhere on the web i read an interview with his coach at the time of this swim, and actually it was 30 x 1000, 1st 10 on 10:45, 2nd 10 on 10:30, 3rd 10 on 10:15, so the average was on 10:30. I believe the 9:50 last 1000 is correct. Also, the coach said the reason he did that set was b/c some Aussie D swimmer had visited recently and did 20 x 1000, so Erik wanted to one-up him, if you consider 10,000 yds one-upping. :) IIRC, this set was ranked #1 in a ranking of the most incredible sets ever done. Somewhere in the top 5 was Dave Wharton's 16,000 IM; yes, 4000 of each stroke with no breaks. I forget whether it was scy or lcm but, even in yards, that would be one hell of a swim!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

There was a guy about my age, Mike Bruner who was said to have done 100x100's on a minute SCY. Not sure how you would stack that up, faster pace, shorter rest, but not as long in much slower pools with slower equipment. Think I heard about another guy around then doing the same thing( I think Tim Shaw), that has to hurt...

Bruner was my size, 5'10" and about 160, think Tim was a bit taller...

Long hull with narrow cross section with a big engine beats short hull with wide cross section with small engine. All three come into play in naval architecture....swimmers are no different. The hull length to cross section ratio kind of shows up in the BMI calculation, but the engine size does not really show up. The bigger guy with the same hull to cross section ratio will likely have a larger engine for the BMI at hand. Kind of like big bikers generally TTing faster than small bikers even though their power to weight ratios may be the same the Power to Cda is not.

Having said that for smaller athletes, there is less of this penalty in high drag oriented strokes like fly and breast where the frontal (drag) is high for part of the stroke before you get to go into the torpedo streamline....for free and back, half of your body is always shaped like a torpedo and even on the other side the high drag "wing" is generating propulsion.

• 400 IM gold medalist Kosuke Hagino (BMI 21.77) is only 177cm and 68 kilos , which is 5'10" and 149.5 lbs
• Daiya Seto (BMI = 24) is a bit more bulked up but shorter....174 cm and 73 kilos which is 5'9" and 161 lbs. Seto won the 400IM Olympic bronze and has won world's in this event. His 200 fly times are 1:54 and 1:48 respectively in long and short course

Dev