It is official. We have entered the age of asterisks in swimming. After going back and forth on the issue, it took Aaron Piersol setting a new world record at WCT in the 200 back for Japan to finally decide to recognize Ryosuke Irie's 1:52 as a national record even though FINA won't accept it as a world record because it was set in an unapproved suit.
This might open a very wide door. Some day we might have several national records that are faster than world records. We might even have masters records that are faster than world records. Who knows?
Check out Garrett's interview with Aaron Piersol from Nats. His perspective on his new world record in the face of Irie's faster swim is pretty fascinating.
Be sure to check out more of Garrett's recent interviews at his youtube channel.
Garrett's interview of Bousquet was great. So negative lol.
ReplyDeleteI don't know many people who could lead off an interview with "Cesar said you were scared".
Who knows? Peirsol could indeed use this as a challenge to better his approved-but-false WR in two weeks and erase Irie's unapproved-but-true one for good.
ReplyDeleteUm, but wait a minute. World Championships are still happening, right? Or should they be written with asterisks too?
I am just asking because for what I read some facilities hosting the swimming teams had been seized by the local judicial police...