Random Musings

I heard on the radio this evening that the impossible has happened – man has broken the 21 second mark over 50 metres.

It’s not Eamon Sullivan who broke it.

And though it was a Frenchman, it wasn’t Alain Bernard.

It was Frederick Bousquet who became the only man in history to have gone over 50 metres in under 21 seconds.

20.94s, to be exact.

Now I think this is huge. I remember when Roman Sloudnov became the first man under 1 minute for the 100m breaststroke back in 2001…it was nowhere as huge as this, in my opinion.

Now pardon me if I say that I’m feeling very amused by the way the world records in the 50m free have been tumbling in the last one year.

My point is this: The 50m free WR was never an easy record to break.

In fact, it was broken only ONCE in an 18-year span from 1990 to 2007.

Once.

Tom Jager did a 21.81 in 1990 (incredible time), and Alex Popov (who was, like, one of the greatest freestylists ever) did the legendary 21.64 in the year 2000.

And no one else broke the WR until the records started tumbling in early 2008.

So I’m finding it really hard to understand how come the 50m free WR can drop FIVE times starting from February last year?

Has there suddenly been a breakthrough in training methods or something? Or is it just down to the new suits?

Honestly, this is too good to be true.

I really hope it’s all legit, cos it’s great for the sport. Swimming has never been as popular as in the recent few years.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed.