i still find it amazing that you can pick almost any swimming stroke or distance and the women’s world record is about where the men’s was in the early 70s. Times about as fast as Spitz, Henken etc. For some running events, like the 800m, the women’s world record is still way short of where the men’s was a century ago - despite the change to synthetic tracks, advent of super spikes, systematic use of pace makers, and lots of pretty obvious steroid use.
Ledecky has all the top 10 times for the 1500 so you can’t really use the top 10 times, needs to be too 10 performers //
Individuals is what I meant of course, using your outlier’s 2nd, 3rd place times does nothing to smooth out the results…
And I think there is something to the whole body fat issue that is reflected in the results. You take gravity sports and it is a negative, but in the water it is probably an advantage, or at the very least neutral, both of which would skew results for swimming vs the other sports…
I think this data supports my hypothesis although you have a point that Ledecky perhaps skews the data. //
Of course she skews the data. When you have a once in a generation talent at the top like that, it throws off the %'s…A closer and more accurate look would be to average the top 3 or 5 best all time and then compare. That would help to get rid of, or at least not amplify such an outlier as Katie. I mean what if you compared to 2nd place in the all time instead of her, and did the same for the man?? Completely different conclusion is what…
I mean go back and compare the womens long jump record to Bob Beamon’s at the time, took many decades to close that outlier % of difference…And sport is rife with those types of examples, thus my suggestion if you really are interested in this ratio, then just pick some number under 10 and average them out and then compare…
I havent looked yet, but how does the 10k OW swim compare?? I mean they usually do the same course under similar conditions, what is the delta there in a non wetsuit swim??? No doubt lots of top races to look at now since it has become such a popular event…
Lotte Friis of Denmark went 15:39, Lauren Boyle 15:40, Simone Quadrella 15:41 are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th faster performers in the 1500 LCM, so average 15:40. For the men, 2nd is Hafnaoui at 14:31.5, Finke at 14:31.6, and Paltrinieri at 14:32.8, so avg about 14:32. 15:40/14:32 = 1.0780 or about 7.8 % slower, not too diff from Ledecky’s 6% slower. So not at all a “completely diff conclusion”.
And wave already gave the answer on the 10K swim, which came out at 10% slower (1:59:30/1:48:33).
If you are an ASCA member they have a really good article about Lotte Friis in the members article section. Things that stand out from memory. She was sucky at kicking. She was a lazy trainer. Her best 3k ever was 33,20-33,35. To be a good sprinter need about 2200 km per year. Distance - 2800 per year.
percent body fat has zero advantage in bike and run. In the swim, the counterpoint to buoyance is you have to feed this non lean mass and I thought it was rather universal that for any distance 400m and above for a given male, he’s going to swim faster when he is leaner.
If you are an ASCA member they have a really good article about Lotte Friis in the members article section. Things that stand out from memory. She was sucky at kicking. She was a lazy trainer. Her best 3k ever was 33,20-33,35. To be a good sprinter need about 2200 km per year. Distance - 2800 per year.
2800 km/yr is 56,000 m/wk for a 50-wk/yr training program. I’ve often heard/read about top D swimmers going 80, 90, even 100 km/wk, but perhaps that was only in their very heaviest training weeks. Perhaps across the whole year 56,000 m/wk is a good average.
percent body fat has zero advantage in bike and run. In the swim, the counterpoint to buoyance is you have to feed this non lean mass and I thought it was rather universal that for any distance 400m and above for a given male, he’s going to swim faster when he is leaner.
Counterpoint just for fun: Ian Thorpe, aka “The Thorpedo” was never very lean but yet held the WRs at 200, 400, and 800 m at one time, and prob could have gotten the WR in the 1500 m but said swimming that long was just “too boring”. Prob Thorpe is the exception to the rule. 
** or about 7.8 % slower, not too diff from Ledecky’s 6% slower. So not at all a “completely diff conclusion”. //**
So almost a 30% difference calculating it that way… You see how statistics work? (-;
And funny that there is a lot of folks and a theory out there that women get better vs men as the distance gets longer. But those 10k times would say the opposite… Do we have any pool 24 hour records to compare?? How about 6 day runs??
Living in a pool basically. I’ve probably had weeks where I was in the water 15-20 hours but water polo tournaments and camps. Biggest week of kms is only 45km 🤣🤣 need to do a 50 or 60km week this year for funsies
It’s the average over the year rather than the peaks that matter
But in the early weeks they probably only do 15km just drills and fun
Could it be that technique plays a bigger role in swimming and being male does not inherently give you a better technique.
This is a huge part of the answer. Buoyancy, body shape, etc, it’s all part of it. But we know from years of studies that males have a significant advantage in strength over females. I don’t know of any studies that show a consistent and sizeable difference in skills like proprioception. When you lessen the importance of the main advantage that males have in athletics the gap between males and females shrinks.
Pretty easy to beat someone on a bike if you’re 10% stronger. Also easy to lose to a 10 year old in a swim even though you can do 100 pull ups.
** or about 7.8 % slower, not too diff from Ledecky’s 6% slower. So not at all a “completely diff conclusion”. //**
So almost a 30% difference calculating it that way… You see how statistics work? (-;
And funny that there is a lot of folks and a theory out there that women get better vs men as the distance gets longer. But those 10k times would say the opposite… Do we have any pool 24 hour records to compare?? How about 6 day runs??
Ya, I thought the same regarding the 10K swim times as generally the women come in around 10 min behind the men , e.g. 2:00 vs 1:50, so about 120/110 ==> 9.1% slower, vs the 7.8% slower in the 1500m swim in the pool. OTOH, if we look at super long swims, it seems that Sarah Thomas pretty much rules as she has the longest, fastest unassisted swims on the books, her longest being 104.6 miles in 67 hr and 16 min, or 1.55 mph. This beats the top male, Neil Agius who went 78.1 mi in 52 hr and 10 min, or 1.50 mph. Now the two swims were in totally diff locations, conditions, etc, but still it would appear that Sarah is the top long distance swimmer in the world. For more info, see https://longswims.com/longest-swims/
Now the two swims were in totally diff locations, conditions, etc, but still it would appear that Sarah is the top long distance swimmer in the world. For more info, see https://longswims.com/longest-swims/ //
Ugh, No No No…I was afraid someone would get into the weeds and compare one off OW swims that have no real correlation to this discussion. That is why I asked for a 24 hour pool swim record to compare the longer distance. The closest one could come to a comparison in the very variable swims, is maybe something like the English Channel records. There have been so many top swimmers there and over time some of the noise of conditions will be smoothed over. Here are the top times for men and women, along with double, triple, and the lone quadruple swim records. You can see the men are well in front of the women, you can do the math on those. And Sara is only the top in the quad, which a man has yet to do, but you can see that if the guy that crushed the woman in the triple did it, well not hard to see the differences…
Now the two swims were in totally diff locations, conditions, etc, but still it would appear that Sarah is the top long distance swimmer in the world. For more info, see https://longswims.com/longest-swims/ //
Ugh, No No No. I was afraid someone would get into the weeds and compare one off OW swims that have no real correlation to this discussion. That is why I asked for a 24 hour pool swim record to compare the longer distance. The closest one could come to a comparison in the very variable swims, is maybe something like the English Channel records. There have been so many top swimmers there and over time some of the noise of conditions will be smoothed over. Here are the top times for men and women, along with double, triple, and the lone quadruple swim records. You can see the men are well in front of the women, you can do the math on those. And Sara is only the top in the quad, which a man has yet to do, but you can see that if the guy that crushed the woman in the triple did it, well not hard to see the differences…
https://en.wikipedia.org/...ish_Channel_swimmers
The triple guy went 28:21 vs the the triple girl’s 34:40, or 22.3% faster, the double guy went 16:10 vs 17:14 for the girl, or 6.6% faster, and the single guy went 6:45 vs 7:25 for the girl, or 9.9% faster. So, on average the guys are 12.9% faster. So I guess the idea that women are faster at ultra long swims is pretty well disproven.
The ‘triple guy’ is called phil rush and is a bit of a legend down these southern parts and in Kiwi land. He is the guy who gets people across the cook strait, between the two islands in NZ.
I’ve heard podcasts with him and he said his all day pace was 1’20 per 100m. I reckon for many training for these long cold and IQ reducing swims many could all day at around 130 - 140 if they built up the training for it over years and years, like Sarah T has, and like many others. But I don’t think many are at 1’20 all day pace like Phil could. He used to do some hectic kms in the pool. And they didn’t know fueling, they just used to eat potatos and chips and anything they could stomach. Check out some of his podcasts you may enjoy.
Re Dev’s earlier comment about all things being equal the leaner swimmer over 400 and up is faster, intuitively that makes sense but I don’t think all things are equal and if carrying a bit more weight lets you do more training and not get sick, and able to generate more force / power in the water then that is another factor to consider. I always feel better when I am heavier in the water, and at the moment I am around 2-3kg down from where I was last year. I feel fine in the water now but I also felt good in the water last year. Just what you get used to.
The ‘triple guy’ is called phil rush and is a bit of a legend down these southern parts and in Kiwi land. He is the guy who gets people across the cook strait, between the two islands in NZ.
I’ve heard podcasts with him and he said his all day pace was 1’20 per 100m. I reckon for many training for these long cold and IQ reducing swims many could all day at around 130 - 140 if they built up the training for it over years and years, like Sarah T has, and like many others. But I don’t think many are at 1’20 all day pace like Phil could. He used to do some hectic kms in the pool. And they didn’t know fueling, they just used to eat potatos and chips and anything they could stomach. Check out some of his podcasts you may enjoy.
Re Dev’s earlier comment about all things being equal the leaner swimmer over 400 and up is faster, intuitively that makes sense but I don’t think all things are equal and if carrying a bit more weight lets you do more training and not get sick, and able to generate more force / power in the water then that is another factor to consider. I always feel better when I am heavier in the water, and at the moment I am around 2-3kg down from where I was last year. I feel fine in the water now but I also felt good in the water last year. Just what you get used to.
All day pace of 1:20 per 100m is just insane. I guess he just never quite had the top end speed to rival Thorpe and Hackett???
So what is your height and weight??? I’m about 185.5 cm and around 80-83 kg.
Yeah sure is. I’m going to relisten to his podcasts.
He is a New Zealander. Never had the top gear the pool greats have. He is a great of the OWs though
185-186cm and around 88-89 atm. Been higher and lower and this seems about right.
Blows my mind people our height can be high 60s and low 70s. They make good bike riders lol!!
Yeah sure is. I’m going to re-listen to his podcasts.
He is a New Zealander. Never had the top gear the pool greats have. He is a great of the OWs though
185-186cm and around 88-89 atm. Been higher and lower and this seems about right.
Blows my mind people our height can be high 60s and low 70s. They make good bike riders lol!!
Ya, when I was running and riding a lot I got down to around 72-73 kg. I felt OK but I just did not like looking so skinny. Did Phil Rush compete on the FINA 10K circuit, which IIRC has somewhere around 15 or 20 10K swims each year??? Or was 10K “too short” for him???
Not too sure but looks like he did some longer marathon races in the 80s in difficult to pronounce parts of the world https://longswims.com/p/philip-rush/
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I’ve trained in the same lane as Phil Rush. You wouldn’t know he was such a legend swimming in the same lane. He didn’t go that much faster than 1.20 pace for longer intervals. This was in mid-2000s.
What a legend. At his peak when he did those atrociously fast crossings in the 80s he would have been an aerobic animal.