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Comment by MisterBastahrd | Hacker News Reader

Well, if this is the case, then wouldn't a person who gets out to an early start have a tremendous advantage over the rest of the group since she'd be swimming largely without interference for the first length of the race while the trailers would have more turbulance? Also, I've never understood why there aren't more standards for Olympic tracks / pools / gear. For example, everyone should be required to train in and wear identical apparel when in a timed event like swimming so that nobody gets a technological advantage.

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Identical apparel is a non-starter unless the athletes have identical body shapes, or we're abandoning (US) broadcasting rights to go Olympic Style.

Devil's advocate, body shape's going to affect them while swimming even if they're not wearing anything, so the interaction between the "regulation apparel" and body shape could be considered just another form of that. (I can see how it might not be in the spirit of the sport, though.)

...would they all have to train the same, eat the same food, etc?

Let's not be intentionally obtuse.

I don't think it's obtuse when you're saying they should be required to wear the same thing while training.

If you want to regulate what they wear for the competition itself, fine. But I don't see how regulating what they wear while training is different than regulating what exercises they do while training, what their diet is while training, etc.

I didn't say anything about training, because training has nothing to directly do with competing.

I was talking about competing. I don't care how they train. The purpose of competing in the event is to win, and in those circumstances, gear should be normalized as much as possible. There are always going to be differences in size, strength, etc. The purpose of the competition is to find the best in the world, and gear prevents at the competition that if some teams have items that give them a huge advantage over others.

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