Balancing Speed and Experience: Optimal Pool Depth for Competitive Swimming | Hacker News Reader

Balancing Speed and Experience: Optimal Pool Depth for Competitive Swimming

aquaticsintl.com

12 pointsthunderbong12 comments

This article reads like it was AI generated rambling. It mixes up units, meanders back and forth between points, provides no citations, and comes to no conclusions.

It should be a statistically answerable question, but instead of looking at past races of various depths, it randomly discusses athletes not getting enough food or air conditioning (OK, but if those were real issues, they probably deserve a separate investigation too?)

I walked away from this more confused than before. It's hard to believe an expert consulting firm actually wrote this...

> This article reads like it was AI generated rambling.

Honestly, it didn't seem that bad to me. And it has one bad keyboarding typo "visual oerception," which is evidence to me against it being all AI generated.

> it randomly discusses athletes not getting enough food or air conditioning

I think that might just be bad writing, since that point doesn't seem random. Basically, the point seemed highlight alternate causes besides pool depth for swimmer under-performance in the 2024 Olympics.

Interesting article but the mixing of feet and metres (without conversion) is rather confusing and obfuscates some of their points a bit.

This reads like something generated by AI. Or at least heavily using it in the writing process.

I swam in a competition at the Sydney Olympic Park, just a couple of years after the 2000 Games. It's mostly a 3 meter pool, with some shallower areas near the end; the impression was one of great depth (because it had the best water clarity I've ever seen in a big pool.)

Subjectively it felt like a very fast pool (I ended up beating my high school times, even 16 years later!)

If the issue is primarily energy bouncing off the pool floor, can they make it out of something less reflective?

This keeps coming up. Is this depth story not simple to fact check with simulations? Are we missing something?

My roommate as a postfix was a guy finishing his graduate work in fluids simulations. He was also a former competitive swimmer. He's the first to tell me about fast and score pools.

According to him the answer is no.

Which makes sense, really. The generated surface waves alone are impossible to simulate, never mind the turbulent wake.

To be clear, I assume there is a difference based on depth?

I remember playing a waterpolo match in a pool for diving (really deep and long double the usual), it felt like a slog and it felt like drowning

In waterpolo, you probably want the reflections from the bottom when treading water because it makes it easier to stay buoyant.

Very strong difference.

But he explained that shallow pools can be also be fast for fluid reasons, and not for psychological ones (better coupling of the arms for propulsion by using by viscous coupling to the floor?)

This is 100% chatgpt

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