IT’S hard not to feel sorry for champions like Ian Thorpe, Libby Trickett and Grant Hackett who this week sat idly by as swimmers wearing new space-age racing suits obliterated world records that had stood the test of time and hundreds of would-be challengers.
Watching record after record tumble as scientifically engineered technology signalled its triumph over human-engineered performance, I cast my mind back and wondered what other champion athletes must have made of it when the inevitable happened and modern-day achievements saw their previously unmatched performances fall by the wayside.
Picture tennis legends like Bjorn Borg, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Court or Rod Laver who played in an era of wooden racquets; golfers like Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan or Peter Thompson, the Aussie golfer who won five British Opens and yet lives in the shadow of the Great White Shark.
These were all champion athletes of their time who made an indelible mark upon their sport as champions in every sense of the word, but their sporting equipment was a necessary tool to achieve success, whereas today’s modern sporting equipment is an integral part of the performance and has a far greater impact upon the outcome.
It’s those sports like athletics, swimming and cycling where the starter’s pistol and stopwatch are used to compare performances of today with those of the past that have been ripped off as boffins around the globe celebrate their technology infused successes.
At the current swimming world titles in Rome, it’s largely been a case of when in Rome . . .
Record after record has tumbled as the controversial Hydrofoil and LZR Racer suits helped competitors reduce their drag through the water by more than six per cent.
Superfish Michael Phelps probably earned himself kudos this week when he threatened to boycott the sport that made him a household name around the world after Beijing, all because he does not agree with the new generation of swimsuits being used as an aid to help competitors lower their times by astronomical amounts.
For the record, Phelps’ coach estimated the super suits contributed to about 1.5 seconds being shaved from the men’s 200 metres time - not bad considering the race only took 1 minute and 42 seconds to run (or swim!).
The equally disappointing thing from all this is that FINA, the world body that oversees the sport of swimming, will let all records stand despite moves to back away from the suits that have made such a (sadly) lasting impression.
Thorpe, Hackett, Phelps et al deserve better or at least for an asterisk to go against the current crop of record breakers so that history recognises what once was, and what was worn. One bright spark yesterday suggested that swimmers should compete sans suit in the interests of fairness, but perhaps a tad more modesty is in order!
Maybe we need to go back to the days when swimmers wore plain old Speedos and shaving down was about the only technological advance acceptable as being in the spirit of the game.
Speaking of spirit, the Bendigo Spirit WNBL basketball franchise deserves to be congratulated for finally winning the battle to secure what should have been rightfully theirs - its name. After last season’s fiasco where a one-off Sydney team was allowed to call itself the Sydney Spirit in the men’s premier national competition, the NBL, common sense has prevailed.
The Bendigo Spirit now needs to finalise its playing list and continue the drive for sponsorship ahead of a much-anticipated third season in the elite women’s competition. Meanwhile, Australian cricketer Phil Hughes is one athlete who probably regrets the use of technology this week, or more precisely, the hot water it landed him in.
It’s no secret the young gun has been struggling with the bat as the most intriguing Ashes series since the last tour evolves, but it was his decision to announce he had been dropped from the Ashes team for Edgbaston via Twitter that he may yet regret.
The Generation Y batting prodigy won few supporters for choosing to declare his fall from favour via the social networking site, but the essentially Baby Boomer Australian selectors copped even more flak for dropping him in the first place. It’s a symptom of the classic inter-generational stoush that leaves some of us scratching our heads and which will one day be the subject of a thesis from somebody far smarter than me.
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