Millennials Archives - Mental Laps

It is a rare occasion to see swimming highlights on Sportscenter, but a few days ago that happened. Caeleb Dressel has been on an absolute tear this week at NCAA Championships, shredding his own 50 Free American and US Open record, lowering it to an unbelievable 17.63. In the post Michael Phelps era, it is great to see swimming highlights transcend the sports landscape. In the context of swimming, how fast are his record-breaking swims? Are they unprecedented?

There are technique and technology advances that have shifted swimming over time. Technology includes water filtration, lanelines, blocks, and air filtration, as well as lower friction materials for suit, goggle and cap design, as well as the availability of video for biomechanic analysis. Considering the last 40 years, there has also been the innovation of the backstroke flip turn, emphasis on underwater kicking, and dolphin kick on breaststroke breakouts. Freestyle has had the least changes in the timeframe noted, so for comparison, I considered the record progression of the 50 Free, 100 Free, and 200 Free. Additionally, the 400 IM was also considered. The starting point for analyzing each of these events is what I considered a monumental record time as the starting point. What was a monumental swim? A record that lasted more than 10 years. Doing this analysis the datapoints for the 200 free were consistent between Matt Biondi and Rowdy Gaines, so I used the old one (1981 instead of 1987). The time when that record was broken was used to trend the future progression of the record, and a +/- 1% projection is shown in the charts, to illustrate a range that would be reasonable for the record swim to land.

The following records were selected for use in the analysis:

400 IM, Tom Dolan, 3:38.18, 1995
200 Free, Rowdy Gaines, 1:33.91, 1981
100 Free, Matt Biondi, 41.80, 1987
50 Free, Tom Jager, 19.05, 1990

I am partial to Tom Dolan’s 400 IM Record swim, for a few reasons. His performances in the 1995 NCAA Season, setting American records in the 400 IM, 500 Free and 1650 Free, all of which stood for roughly a decade, and led the University of Michigan to a National Championship, is unprecedented in the last 30 years for a team that was not sprint focused. Additionally, those swims were a lead-up to back to back 400 IM Olympic Gold Medals in Atlanta and Sydney.

In 2009 Tyler Clary significantly dropped the 400 IM record, by over two seconds, and eight years later Chase Kalisz dropped the record another 2.5 seconds with his swim at NCAA Championships. Looking at that progression over the course of 22 years, the improvement is in an expected range. Interestingly, the time improvements seem to be in a reasonable range, comparing to previous milestones of the 400 IM.

Similarly, looking at Rowdy Gaines 200 Free Record swim in 1981 and the amount it was broken by Matt Biondi 6 years later, there was some incremental improvements to that record, but it was not until Simon Burnett’s swim of 1:31.20 in 2006 that the record was really pushed forward significantly. Even so, considering that time progression, the record by Blake Pieroni and subsequently Townley Haas at the 2018 NCAA Championships, this record seems to be within an expected range. It is cool that the 1:30 barrier was broken, but based on how the record has progressed over the last 40 years, it looks like it was about time for this to happen.

It gets a little more interesting when looking at the 100 Free. Matt Biondi’s 41.80 record swim from 1987 was tied by Anthony Ervin in the early 2001 and broke it in 2002, but the record was not lowered, significantly, until the supersuit year of 2009 by Caesar Cielo. Projecting that record forward, Dressel’s 39.90 is slightly faster than we would anticipate. Admittedly, Caeleb said he was tired in the 100 free swim on the last day of NCAA Championships. Considering what he did in the 50 Free and 100 fly, we can only speculate where he could have taken this record, which may be well outside the expected record progression range.

On the other hand, Dressel’s 50 Free this year, or his swim from each of the last 3 NCAA Champsionships for that matter, is without comparison. Tom Jager’s 19.05 was a historic swim, a record that stood for 15 years, until Fred Bousquet became the first one to break 19 seconds. As an 18-second 50 Free has become more common, the question arises on how fast is possible. Dressel’s 17.63 is half a second faster than his previous best, from 2017 and further separates him from history in this event. On top of winning the event by a full second (1.01 to be exact), in a historical context, his swim is unprecedented.

How is this possible? I point to a couple reasons: anaerobic performance and momentum. In the other events, aerobic performance, and cardiovascular conditioning dominate. The aerobic ability of these swimmers is going to be relatively even, considering they are all elite athletes that train at a high level. Over time, technology combined with these physiological characteristics and physical abilities will drive the incremental improvements in maximum performance, which in this case, our measure is the US Open record in these four events. For that reason, the 100 free and longer events appear relatively consistent from a historical trend.

In the 50 free, on the other hand, the aerobic requirement is minimal, because the majority of the race is anaerobic, dependent on fast twitch muscles, so it introduces a much different physiology. Plus, the start is a significant portion of the race, ie, jumping, a relatively non-swimmer skill. As a result of the start, when the swimmer hits that water is the point of greatest momentum. On top of excellent technique and feel for the water, Caeleb Dressel has an athletic ability to jump, and his entry maintains that momentum to such a greater extent than others. It is not an exaggeration to say that he performs this at a level which we have never seen.

50 free swim split differentials of 2018 NCAA men's 50 free final — Difference between first and second 25s (seconds)

His split differential from first to second 25 is in the middle of the range of swimmers in that final (0.67 vs a median of 0.69), which is a bit surprising because he had clean water on the second 25 which would put him in better position to be faster than those swimming in the outside lanes. That lends more support to the idea that his aerobic abilities are not exceptional. From his entry in the water, he is at a higher momentum and through his technique he maintains that speed, while having a traditional drop off from the first to second 50.

What do you think? Are there other monumental records that I missed? And how about Caeleb Dressel being down to earth?

References:

Image from Dan D’Addona, via Swimming World Magazine: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/bandanna-kids-and-the-down-to-earth-caeleb-dressel/

https://swimswam.com/event/2018-ncaa-d1-mens-championships/

http://magazines.swimmingworldmagazine.com:9997/spipdf/20120118billbellmscytop50.pdf

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/aub/sports/c-swim/auto_pdf/0708-SD-MG-4.pdf

Since 2011 we have had a Jetta, specifically a MKVI JSW TDI to the VW-initiated: the Jetta Sportwagen Clean Diesel…the perfect truckster for the budding millennial family. The event of buying the TDI was very exciting for us. It was our first new car, the fuel economy enabled her to get fuel once a month instead of once a week in her old GMC S-15, and as an engineer, I was excited about the performance, drivetrain dependability and cabin space available for a vehicle getting 40 mpg. We walked out of the dealership with a new car and initiated into the subculture with a Peace, Love, VW t-shirt. The JSW TDI was cool in a non-mainstream way, and as my wife put it, ‘It can do everything except pick up chicks.’

That New Car Smell

The car was great, we figured we were saving 500 gallons in fuel a year, road trips with four adults, two big dogs, and a roof rack car carrier gave us all the space of renting an SUV, but double the gas mileage! At the time I had calculated the breakeven for the diesel over the gas variant was roughly 60,000 miles, which seemed like no problem because our last car had been driven to 150,000. Our actual recovery point was probably less because we had an exceptional period of time in Ohio where diesel cost less than 87 octane, this is a common occurrence down south, but not in the northern states along the turnpike.

I espoused the value of the diesel passenger car to friends and coworkers, how it was a better return on investment than hybrids in the same vehicle class. In retrospect, I had become a diesel evangelist. On a trip to Europe, I saw the TDI everywhere, much more prevalent than what we had in the states, and noted the disparity to our gas guzzling culture. Thereafter, indirectly or not, one coworker bought an American made Passat TDI while another got a BMW 535d.

The VW Diesel Crisis

The VW Clean Diesel Documentation in its Emissions Spewing Irony — The Clean Diesel’s Emission Spewing Irony

That same coworker, the 535d owner, texted me the TDI news in fall 2015. A major lawsuit was coming because Volkswagen lied about the emissions on their diesel vehicles. I blew it off, these were the Clean Diesel people, they had a better mousetrap than the competition. WRONG. And a few weeks later VW admitted it, they had created a cheat system in the vehicle system to cheat the emissions testing procedure. Many have chronicled the events as they unfolded, including this timeline from cars.com.

The excess emissions notwithstanding, we still liked our car, it was not even five years old and we planned to keep it for ten, so we had no plans to get rid of it. As the months unfolded, plenty of stories came out about people driving their cars to VW America HQ and making a public scene of the companies indiscretion. I was not in that group. The car still served all the purposes we had, albeit a bit more cramped with a car seat. Then the “I’m sorry” gift cards came, with extended roadside assistance warranty. We used the gift cards to get winter wheels for the car, in effect, doubling down our commitment to the car, and canceled our third party roadside assistance. This is awesome! We are coming out ahead. Then the Buyback plan came out. Receiving more than Kelley Blue Book value for the car seemed attractive, but considering that the average car price was roughly 15% more than what we paid for the JSW, the net outcome seemed less appealing. So we held tight.

VW attempt to keep TDI Customers — Subliminal Message: Please Don’t Leave Us!

But something changed. Maybe the Buyback idea grew on me. Maybe my beliefs of the car had been so high and now reality set in, I was underwhelmed. It reminded me of watching The Wire. After an eccentric sexagenarian told me “You hafta watch The Wire,” we used our Netflix disc rental to the fullest and consumed all five seasons over the course of a few months. When the show was over I had a TV hangover. I had no interest in watching another show. I felt nothing else would measure up. And now, looking at our car, that is how I felt about the JSW, it would never live up to its marketing persona.

And so, we flipped. The TDI Clean Diesel had fallen from the exalted position of the perfect car for us to being a short-timer that would soon be out the door. Now, what will replace it? Looking at cars, wagons, CUVs and SUVs, the gas, hybrid and electric variants, nothing measured up to the fuel economy standard we had become accustomed to in the JSW…because it was all a lie!

As of today, our 2011 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI has been bought-back by Volkswagen Group of America. With the distorted measuring stick that was the TDI-family and finding no vehicle to which I feel I can make a long-term commitment, the buyback is going into a lease on an all wheel drive, tech-laden sedan. Heated and vented seats, car play, remote start, multiview cameras, an app..yes, please! The Spartan family truckster had nothing on this.

Category: Millennials

How Good is Caeleb Dressel?

Goodbye, TDI ‘Clean Diesel’

That New Car Smell

The VW Diesel Crisis