Swimming: Why Sydney is life in the fast lane

By PETER JESSUP

The world's best swimmers rate the Sydney Olympic pool the best in the world and, rather than feeling ambushed, are thanking their hosts for the chance to break records.

The Olympic 50m pool was designed with competitive swimmers in mind and includes several features that help them go faster.

The pool is like a millpond before they start and immediately after they pass, given wave attenuation features in the lane markers and on the sides of the pool.

It is 10 lanes wide instead of the usual eight, but only eight lanes are used for competition. The wash going out from the "arrowhead" formation that results from the fastest competitors getting the central lanes goes straight over the "wet deck" grill at the sides and is recycled, rather than bouncing back.

The sides have stepped tiers to dampen movement, the surface is dimpled to absorb energy. The pool runs from 3m deep to 2.5m, the extra water also meaning there is less reflected energy to add friction as the swimmers go past.

The water is "soft," containing far less than the usual amount of chlorine, achieved through an expensive double-filtering process through carbon sand then ozone screens.

The pool and surrounds are also temperature-controlled, so swimmers do not lose body heat or waste energy while out of the water. The pool is one degree warmer than the international swimming body Fina's recommended 27 deg and the air temperature is 29 deg, thanks to underfloor heating, but condensation is at a minimum due to aeration.

The start blocks are high-tech, angled down to aid push-off from the feet. There are handrails to help the launch and a rubber surface to prevent slipping. On top of all that are the new suits, dimpled like a shark's skin, because water flows faster off a dimpled surface in the way air does off a golf ball.

But maybe the main reason for the records is the old "top two inches."

United States freestyle sprinter Gary Hall touched on it at the weekend. If records had already been broken in a pool, other swimmers would believe they could do it too.

Already 25 world records have been broken in the Homebush Bay pool and it's certain more will follow.

Apart from the pool, the suits, and the psychological boost from the record of records, this is still an exceptionally classy field of swimmers. Australian swimming coach Don Talbot came out with the best quote about the speed in Sydney when asked if Homebush was a "fast" pool.

"I think all pools are fast. I subscribe to the theory that when you are ready to swim fast you'll swim fast in molasses."