Word: swimmer
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People are born with different proportions of the two fiber types, and athletes tend to excel in events for which they have the best muscle endowment. Sprinters, such as track star Carl Lewis and swimmer Dana Torres, have muscles containing a large majority of fast-twitch fibers. So, surprisingly, do shot putters and weight lifters, who need not only strength but power too. "They have to move a heavy weight very quickly," explains U.S. Olympic Training Center physiologist Steve Fleck. "Weight lifters in the clean-and-jerk event can move as fast as a sprinter." Distance runners and swimmers...
Never getting out of condition is the best way to maintain an athletic career. Top athletes now train year-round instead of seasonally. "It's not advancing age that necessarily hurts performance," says American physiologist Steve Fleck, "it's deconditioning." Experts believe that swimmer Mark Spitz, 42, whose technique in the butterfly stroke is still regarded as ideal, failed in his comeback bid earlier this year in part because he had been out of condition for 17 years and did not do enough resistance training. Nonetheless, notes Fleck, "the trend is in the direction of the better performances coming from...
Maybe engineers and designers should get Olympic medals. In the pole vault, heights jumped 30% with the switch from bamboo to fiber-glass and carbon- composite poles. Tracks have been resurfaced to give runners more bounce and speed, and pools have been designed to dampen wave action that buffets swimmers. Some athletes fear their events could become contests of equipment and facilities, but as any coach would admit, it still takes a great swimmer to bring out the best in a great pool...
Still, grand dame Evans, puppyish Nall and embattled Wagstaff are likely to be overshadowed by Thompson and Summer Sanders, each competing in as many as five events. Sanders, maybe the team's most complete swimmer, is in the 100-m and 200-m butterfly and the 200-m and 400-m individual medley, plus a possible relay. She is likely to win only twice -- teammate Crissy Ahmann-Leighton is the fastest active 100-m butterflyer in the world, and Sanders tends to lose rhythm in the final freestyle laps of the medleys -- yet she could be somewhere on the victory...
Thompson, who is so tough that she often wrestles male Olympic swimmer Doug Gjertsen to a standoff, is a favorite at all the freestyle distances Evans isn't swimming -- the 50 m, 100 m and 200 m -- and will likely join freestyle and medley relays. She could come close to the tally of her heroine, Kristin Otto of East Germany, whose six gold medals at Seoul are a record for a woman in any sport. Thompson's awe at that feat is tinged with healthy skepticism and a yen for battle. "To take over from the East Germans would...