INDIANAPOLIS, Reuter: Can one swimming pool! be faster than another?
Although many people think water is and that if you have seen one 50 meter Olympic sized pool you’ve seen them all, the answer is yes.
Skip Kenney, the head coach of the U.S. Swim team at the Pan American Games, called ‘the pool at the Indiana University Natatorium possibly “the very best in the world”.
The coach, who guided the Stanford University Men’s Swim team to three consecutive U.S. National collegiate athletic association championships, said: “A fast pool is determined by how: smooth the water can stay during 4 race”.
He said depth and the size of the side gutters are the two factors that make one pool faster than another.
If a pool is the ideal depth, the waves caused by a rage will not bounce off the bottom and back to the surface into the path of the swimmers as they turn.
The size of the gutters is a particular concern for swimmers in the outside lanes.
Much like a boat going through water, a swimmer creates a wake that bounces off the sides and back into the lanes, Kenney said. Large gutters, like those in the Pan American Games pool, absorb almost all of that turbulence.
Kenney said he expected the U.S. swim team, spurred on by enthusiastic home town fans, to have an additional advantage here.
Because the stands are unusually close to the water and on both sides of the pool, the American swimmers “will feel like they are right there with the audience”, he said.
MIAMI: Undefeated Jesus “Sugar Baby” Rojas of Colombo handed World Boxing Council (WBC) super flyweight of Colombia Santos Laciar of Argentina his first defeat in seven years tonight, winning the title with a unanimous 12round points decision.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 14, 1987
