Swimming - the women's bodies

[Quelah]

When I was a little girl, I swam competitively. I had the opportunity to train along side some of the great swimmers of the '84 Games, Nancy Hogshead and Pablo Morales swam with same coach. I mean train literally along side, on nights when the long course was heavily misted over by steam coming off the pool and coach couldn’t see past the flag, I would sometimes quick duck under the lane ropes and draft Pablo during timed sets. Talk about getting sucked into the slipstream! Anyway, even though I was only 12-13 at the time, I was a butterflyer and was starting to develop the kind of upper body muscling you’re talking about. It wasn’t 'roids, it was work I remember my older brothers giving me a hard time about looking like an East German swimmer because my shoulders were getting pretty pyramidal. The assumption being that all the East German swimmers were doping like fiends.

To this day, all these years later, I still have pretty well developed trapezius muscles.

[2tempe]

I swam competitively through high school in the late 60’s. Even then, when it was thought that weight training was bad, we did a lot of things for upper body strength. Resistance training out of the pool, hand stands against the wall, push- ups, etc. There was a time I could do 75 push ups. Now I think I can do 7…

I had huge shoulders; buying coats and jackets and any reasonably fitted top was a big problem.

Now the swimmers do more of everything, particularly at this level. more pool time. More weight training. I won’t say that there aren’t drug users here and there, but these women most likely got this way due to the work. And starting with the right body type to begin with.

Look how many equestrians are long legged and thin. Do we think they are all anorexic? No.

[enjoytheride]

I didn’t see any boobs on the beach volleyball players, but I think the skimpy bikinis and different muscles are more appealing to the average male

[Quelah]

Oh, and re lack of boobage, well yeah, you’re not likely to see really busty women swimming at the Olympics. A smooth hydrodynamic body is just that, smooth. Boobs protrude, they’re going to slow you down, fractionally. And at that level, fractions of a second matter, a lot. I knew junior swimmers that were very very fast, once they hit puberty and if they were very “busty” as we said back then in the locker rooms, they just weren’t quite as fast. I only knew (not they I knew everyone, just speaking of the nationally/internationally ranked swimmers that I did know) one top top female swimmer who had a largish breasts. She was a back stroker, so it was a little less of an issue. I don’t think she chose her stroke because of her build, she was a truly gifted backstroker, but it worked out well.

[Foxtrot_s]

Lance Armstrong was almost a hero to me A cycling friend of mine used to look at me sideways - like how naive can you be…I was truly so disappointed in that man, read the book, believed in him, and then all the lying and pretending.

Dick Pound has his problems with cleaning up the drug scene, but there seems to be progress, and he is Canadian…proud of that.

[CiegoStar]

My best childhood friend was a top swimmer in high school and college. She developed the large shoulders/flat chested build without ANY drugs, thank you very much.

Like any sport, certain body types are more suited - petite for gymnastics, tall for basketball, etc. And then the build gets honed by the work. It doesn’t take drugs to become an athlete and it’s a bit insulting that the OP would insinuate that these women would do so.

[flyracing]

Wow, sad to think that people sit around and assume I’m using steroids since I’m flat chested and have muscles. Reality is, by the time is was 10, I was in the gym at least 6 hours a day. By the time I was 12, 8 hours wasn’t uncommon. Dedicated training at a young age changes your body. The fact that all of my family were naturally muscled athletes helped too (genetics and mental game). So, yes, I don’t look like a couch potato, but no, no drugs. Work harder than most people even know how too. And if people think I somehow cheated my clean WADA test last month, I wouldn’t even know what you say to them besides they’re crazy.

[SuzieQNutter]

I had a friend who gave up swimming when her shoulders got bigger and breasts got smaller. It is not from steroids it is from the muscles exercised for swimming.

[Where_sMyWhite]

[QUOTE=Rallycairn;8784250]
How long did Lance Armstrong get away with an open secret? I remember years before he was outed, someone familiar with the cycling world telling me – if you win in cycling, you dope. Period.[/QUOTE]

I would say this is no longer true. Cycling has been focused on doping for a number of years now. There might be the odd rider that does, but it is not, IMO, near as rampant as it used to be.

Do you understand how Armstrong “doped”??? Cyclists don’t, in general, do steroids. The riders that are of the class to win 3 week grand tour races don’t do steroids. They don’t want muscle bulk or weight.

Armstrong’s primary means of “doping” was blood doping. Making blood “donations” of his own blood in the weeks leading up to the Tour de France. Prior to and during the race, he would transfuse his own red blood cells back into his body. That was the common form of blood doping in that era. Lance did do other things but blood doping was the most common. He also used EPO which is a “blood booster”.

Blood doping is much harder now as your blood can be tested to see how old blood cells are. If you have too many “old” blood cells, you’re likely doping.

Modern riders may do things like train at altitude which does help increase the number of red blood cells

FWIW, there are 3 grand tour races (3 week races). The Tour de France is only 1 of the 3. The others are the Tour of Italy and Tour of Spain. Lance never raced (to the best of my recollection) any grand tour race other than France.

WADA does test riders. They can show up at any time. At the completion of the race, the winner is, to my understanding, escorted from the finish line to be tested (urine and blood).

Could you still “dope”? Sure. Do many riders do it any more. I don’t think so.

[JER]

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;8784347]

Dick Pound has his problems with cleaning up the drug scene, but there seems to be progress, and he is Canadian…proud of that.[/QUOTE]

Dick Pound is part of the problem. WADA is too embedded in the IOC corruption gravy train to actual serve its mission.

Keep in mind that WADA and the IOC were given the entire story on the state-run Russian doping system in 2013. What was their response? They said, uh, well, we can’t really investigate things. Eventually, a frustrated WADA official independently contacted a journalist, Hajo Seppelt, who made the brilliant documentaries about doping in Russia.

Read all about it here. This is very important reading for anyone trying to understand this situation. Everything was known about this years ago – WADA and the IOC weren’t interested.

Yesterday, Day One of the Olympics, was a showcase for dopers. The mens road race was a howler. The winner was supposed to be banned for two years in 2015 because he was caught injecting something, which he claimed was some kind of baby supplement. The lead pack was all tied to fishy stuff – Tinkoff, Astana, Sky, etc. Then you had the swimming dopers in the evening sessions, some on the podium.

Tonight, the crowd booed swimmer Yulia Efimova, who has a number of positive tests to her name, despite being part of the protected state-sponsored doping system. She was banned right up until Friday, then for some unfathomable reason she was allowed to compete. The mind boggles. And whatever she’s been taking, it’s working, because she won her heat.

The dopers are winning. Not just the obvious dopers, but also the really good dopers who don’t/won’t/can’t get caught because the substances they’re using are well outside the domain of testing.

[Foxtrot_s]

I disagree - I like to believe that attempts are being made to clean it up, even if the war is never truly won. The unprecedented banning of the Russians and Paras is testament to that.

I believe in sport, in integrity, and what it does for individuals and the country, and that there are clean sports.

IOC has lost its way to a certain extent … the athletes are necessary for window dressing, but don’t tell that to those who coach and give of themselves to their athletes and the athletes who live their whole lives for a dream. Athletes who believe in sport and give back and give us something to aspire to and who make us proud.

I know this does not make sense to some who are not so into this, and that is fine, but for a lot of us sport is a big part of what is good in life.

[JER]

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;8784561]
I disagree - I like to believe that attempts are being made to clean it up, even if the war is never truly won. The unprecedented banning of the Russians and Paras is testament to that.[/QUOTE]

The banning of Russians was done by the IPC not the IOC. The IPC, much to its credit, worked with Richard McLaren to examine the evidence before making their decision. The IOC didn’t want to know from the McLaren report. This is shameful.

Then we have the matter of Brazil deciding to not bother with athlete drug testing in the lead-up to the Games (more here).

And then a Kenyan track official gets sent home from Rio because he’s videoed saying that because he gets the testing list ahead of time, he’d be happy to warn athletes 12 hours in advance that they’re due to be tested – for a fee of $10,000. He also suggested that athletes come to Kenya to train because it’s a good place to escape the drug testers. (This is in the Times today but no link as it’s paywalled Murdoch media.)

There are some clean sports out there. But they’re clean because doping doesn’t help them, not because the participants are more moral or virtuous than other athletes. (Or they’re clean because no one has any money for fancy doctors and drugs.)

And just FYI, Russia might be an obvious baddie in the doping war, but there are a number of other countries in which doping is part of elite sport. If you go to WADA’s list of support staff (doctors, coaches) who are banned from sport due to doping activities, you’ll see that there are approximately 130 names on the list, of which 63 are from Italy. Italian doping doctors are a worldwide export, you can find them in Kenya and wherever, providing their services.

Sport is a big part of what is good in life, I agree, but the playing field is very unlevel. At the end of a competition, you might be watching someone running effortlessly when you’re falling apart, and the difference there might have nothing to do with how hard you trained or how prepared you are or your natural abilities. That’s hard to watch and hard to accept.

[Thylacine]

JER, i wish that I could give a thousand Thumbs Up to your above post.

and anyone who thinks Equestrian is "clean’’, I’ve got 2 words for you: Yer dreamin’!

[Lord_Helpus]

I just read a book about the steroid scandal from the 1974 games. All the East German women swimmers were on steroids – they were told it was a vitamin pill. If they questioned it or stopped taking it they were immediately dropped from the program. One swimmer even died under mysterious circumstances.

This case did not come to the courts for 20 years and the upper-ups who planned and implemented the program were sentenced to many years.

Somehow I don’t think that any swimmer would be stupid enough to take steroids after that. Too many eyes upon them.

[JER]

[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8784743]

Somehow I don’t think that any swimmer would be stupid enough to take steroids after that. Too many eyes upon them.[/QUOTE]

Since then, loads of swimmers have been banned for steroid positives. If you go to FINA and look up the current cases, you’ll see people serving bans currently for various steroids. Even nice people like Americans have tested positive over the years.

You know why? Because steroids work! That’s the real lesson from the East Germans.

Here’s a section from a swimming website titled ‘Steroids in Swimming’. This is just recent stuff, and there’s a lot there.

[Palm_Beach]

[QUOTE=JER;8784216]
Well, in theory maybe. But here we have GB cyclist Lizzie Armitstead having three ‘whereabouts’ violations in 10 months – miss 3 tests in a year and you’re banned, the rule is very clear – and British Cycling gets one of her misses overturned because she ‘had her phone on silent’ when the testers called. So, like everything else with the various orgs and doping, arrangements can always be made to work around these rules.

You can read an excellent interview here with the former head investigator for WADA, who describes in detail how WADA repeatedly tried to undermine his investigations.

There is LOTS of doping in swimming. Several known Russian dopers (including one who tested positive 5 times this year) will be in the pool in Rio. And Sun Yang, who’s served a ban and then was also taking meldonium, allegedly for an alleged heart problem that allegedly resolved itself when meldonium was banned. If anyone saw the women’s 400 IM final last night, your head does spin when an older swimmer who’s made Michelle Smith-like improvements obliterates the world record that was set by the most suspect Chinese swimmer in London. Of course, the most successful dopers are the ones who can’t get caught, because the drugs are sophisticated enough to either not test or to cause increases in the production of your own HGH or testosterone or EPO, which would be therefore ‘natural’ and not detectable.

As for the breast issue, as others have said, the tech suits have lots of compression and you really have to stuff yourself into them. A new one can take a good 30-40 minutes to put on and that effort alone will leave you drenched in sweat.

I think it’s cool that you were watching swimming in a bar. That should happen more often than once every four years. :)[/QUOTE]

Well, we are in the bar quite often, but usually no swimming on TV. Our preferred place is a pool with a bar, but alas, not many of them around.

I do remember hearing about Sun Yang’s positive test and bad attitude, who won his race that night, which sparked the discussion regarding steroids and the women. Someone googled side effects and reported that a side effect in women is a decrease in breast tissue, which is linked to an overall decrease in body fat due to steroid use.

Also, some of those women had a lot of hair under their swim caps causing a boob sized lump on their heads. So the argument about boobs causing drag does not, pardon, hold much water.

[Where_sMyWhite]

[QUOTE=JER;8784528]
Yesterday, Day One of the Olympics, was a showcase for dopers. The mens road race was a howler. The winner was supposed to be banned for two years in 2015 because he was caught injecting something, which he claimed was some kind of baby supplement. The lead pack was all tied to fishy stuff – Tinkoff, Astana, Sky, etc.[/QUOTE]

Can you cite any examples of doping in 2015/2016?

Greg Van Avermaet’s doping charge dates from 2013 and has been dismissed.

TdF’s organizers were spot checking for internal motors all race long and nothing was found (mechanical doping).

Yeah, Froome was taking clenbuterol (I think it was) but medically prescribed and I have not seen any claims of that this year.

Maybe they are still doping but I don’t think it is as rampant is you make it sound although I could easily be wrong. Which is why I was asking for basis for current claims of doping. I know in the past it was bad. I also believe that currently the penalties for doping in Italy are fairly stringent. Yes, the Dr’s were Italian but Armstrong did his blood doping IIRC in Spain (not Italy).

[JER]

[QUOTE=Where’sMyWhite;8786256]
Can you cite any examples of doping in 2015/2016?[/QUOTE]

Last year, there were some positives for an EPO-ish drug still in trials stages. IIRC it was Italians who were banned. I’m pointing to this example because it shows that cycling is still on the lookout for new/unknown substances that hopefully won’t test.

In 2015, the notorious Astana team had about half a dozen doping positives in a span of several months. Simon Yates earlier this year had some kind of positive, although his connections are trying to turn it into a TUE issue.

Cycling isn’t clean. The power numbers in this year’s TdF don’t make a whole lot of sense otherwise.

[MtnDrmz]

While I’m sure there are some althetes who do dope and have gotten away with it, I don’t think that every single women swimmer is built they way they are because of doping. When you train a certain muscle group constantly, you devlop those muscles. Look at gymnasts, they are all shaped very similiarly due to the intense training they go though from such a young age. When people train as much as an Olympic level althete, or even a hopeful Olympian (if they are younger), often times their puberty is delayed and their womanly features just don’t develop the same that they do in someone who isn’t training as hard and just being a normal human. When your body fat gets down to a cerian level, menses stops. That is a huge hormal change in a woman’s body and development.

Sure they are those who dope, but no I do not believe that is the main reason why they are shaped the way they are.

[starsandsun]

SuzieQ, your friend’s decision makes me sad. I wish we were all free from gender norms, bias and stereotypes about what women should do and what their bodies should look like. I wish instead we celebrated more completely what these bodies of ours can do, whether it’s swimming, riding, leading companies … whatever we want, not what external societal norms tell us women should be or do.