How Do Olympians Keep Getting Better?
In the first week of competition at this year’s Olympic Games, nine world records fell in the swimming pool, including 17-year old Missy Franklin’s new standard in the 200-meter backstroke and Rebeccas Soni’s personal best in the 200 breaststroke, even though many of the previous records were set by swimmers wearing now-banned extra-bouyant suits.
“There is almost certainly a species limit in terms of physical capabilities, and I suspect we might be in the range of that,” said Carl Foster, an exercise physiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse. “But every time scientists say humans are not going to go any faster, they’ve been shown to be wrong. You can take that one to the bank.”
