At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, swimmers set 25 world-record times while dominating the National Aquatic Center's pool. By comparison, only five world records changed hands during the track and field events. But many of those swimming records fell only as a result of newly instituted bodysuit technology, relative advances that aren't applicable to runners, high-jumpers, and shotputters.

Have humans reached their peak athletic performance? One study argues that's the case, and that without the continued use of technology, the past roars of Olympic crowds will one day be nothing but whimpers in the stands.

In Beijing, both swimming and track and field had their own stars, genetic freaks that literally towered over their competitors. In the water, it was Michael Phelps, the most decorated gold medal Olympian of all time, who snagged four records on his own, and another three as a member of a relay team. Phelps' terra firma equal was Usain Bolt, who set three world records in track and field on his way to Olympic glory.

Yet the mere presence of exceptional athletes didn’t explain the discrepancy in the rise in the number of world records. Rather, the difference could be entirely attributed to technology. Almost 95 percent of swimmers that won races during the 2008 Olympics were wearing the high-performance – and highly controversial – Speedo LZR suit.

An outfit forged from slick, polyurethane panels, the LZR suit was developed in NASA wind tunnels and specifically designed to reduce both skin friction and viscous drag.

After Beijing, manufacturers raced to take technical swimsuits to the next level. If the LZR suit, which is about half polyurethane, helped swimmers break records, companies wondered what would happen if they fabricated a suit made entirely from the slippery polymer?

During the FINA 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome, Phelps lost the 200 freestyle to Paul Biedermann of Germany, who was wearing the 100-percent polyurethane Arena X-Glide. Phelps, who couldn’t stomach losing to Biedermann – a guy who finished four seconds behind him in Beijing – planned to boycott international events until the polyurethane suits were outlawed. Soon after, FINA banned all technical materials, saying competitors must wear suits made from textiles or woven fabrics.

Regardless of how you felt about the technical suits, there was an undeniable buzz watching so many world records shattered in such a short period of time. And by charting the world’s top performances in swimming and track and field events for over 100 years, Geoffroy Berthelot and colleagues from the Institute for Biomedical Research and Sports Epidemiology in Paris have shown that athletes are quickly maxing out on what’s humanly possible.

Aside from statistical hiccups during World Wars I and II – times when athletics wasn't exactly a top priority and the number of available contenders waned – charting the yearly top athletic performances shows the human race has been consistently approaching its athletic peak since 1900, driven primarily by factors such as improvements in training programs and equipment.

But in analyzing the data, Berthelot and his team came across something unexpected: Not only were significantly less world records broken during the 2008 Olympic games, but nearly 64 percent of track and field events haven’t progressed since 1993. Swimming events, on the other hand, continue to steadily improve and the sport’s world records keep falling.

Track and field and swimming stand at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the extent a sport relies on technology. While Nike launches a new track shoe every now and again, the company hasn’t come close to revolutionizing the sport like Speedo did with the LZR.

Our gene pool just doesn’t allow us to produce dozens of athletic monsters like Phelps and Bolt. So when it comes to the future of the Olympic games, perhaps we need to take stock of what’s most important. Is it the thrill of worldly competition, or the chance to see athletes defy what we think is possible? Berthelot makes the case for the latter, which will only become more dependent on advances in new tech.

Berthelot G, Tafflet M, El Helou N, Len S, Escolano S, et al. (2010) Athlete Atypicity on the Edge of Human Achievement: Performances Stagnate after the Last Peak, in 1988. PLoS ONE 5(1): e8800. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008800

Photo: AP Photo/David J. Phillip

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