Day Ten

Beijing, China. Friday, August 15th 2008.

Outside the Water Cube and on ‘the strip’ in Beijing near the Forbidden City.

That this is an amazing structure is to be understated. It has a steel frame to which is attached a lattice of heavy transparent plastic “pillows ” or bubble. Each bubble contains a battery of multicolored lights wired to a terminal that allows a computer program to choose which color is to be displayed at any given moment. In the evening the programmer sends various messages to the exterior walls, most of which are in Chinese. The messages are essential “Welcome” and “One world.”

You can touch the bubbles from the inside, although you are risking being sent to Mongolia to work on building a highway if you do! Because wondering minds “want to know” I felt obligated to give it a careful finger…or two. My impression is that it is definitely pressurized and my fear is that like anything of this sort, it will not be pressurized indefinitely. I can identify a number of patches where probing fingers may have been a little too probing. There are a lot of highways to build for the developing Chinese I guess.

The lower ground level consists of a wall of glass that has water being pumped to the top of each pane allowing the water to run down along the glass into reflecting pools at your feet. This exists inside as well as 1/3 of the way along the outside. It is quite dramatic at night as the reflecting pond do their job quite well and produce an illusion of a much bigger structure than it actually is. For spectator safety, the pools are about three inches deep. More probing fingers.
The ceiling over the pool also consists of these bubbles and in this case they are translucent. As a result, the pool is lighted largely by the sun and it works very well as you can tell from the television images. Looks kinda cool too!

Between the competition pool and warm-up and warm-down pools there is a “lobby” of sorts accessible from the ground level. Both of these pools actually sit below ground level and perpendicular to each other. There is a 50 meter glass window that allows you to watch the coaches and swimmers preparing for their races.

Many athletes are not able to communicate with their coaches because the coaches do not have clearance. Another way of looking at this is: many coaches are not able to communicate with their athletes. This is because security allows few coaches (and team officials) representing any given country actual access into competitive areas. This has created a situation whereby coaches are “miming” instructions to their athletes through the glass and down on the non-competition pool using hand signals to provide feedback and further instructions. Despite the obstacle, it seems quite effective.

As you have may have read, Dara Torres travels with quite an entourage. When she is preparing to swim (and then recovering from her swim) she does not have the ability to access ‘Team Dara.’ And so…. Dara exits the competition arena and has a complete staff set up in this glass hallway. Her routine is there for all to witness (and many to film). I personally felt a little weird about filming this routine. But I will describe it briefly. There is much grunting and groaning and if I am completely honest… the groaning appears genuine and appropriate. What her ‘handlers’ do to her looks and sounds like it hurts. A lot. To quote Coach Steen again “A whole lot! It apparently works for her. There is a lot of limb twisting and flesh pounding and lots of walking on body parts. It has been written in the NY Times that she pays a small fortune for the privilege. I can’t help but thinking that there are many swim fans that would do this for free. But of course… they wouldn’t be trained professionals now would they?
Dara has to be admired for the way she has performed and behaved. Not that a forty-one year-old shouldn’t know how to behave! But I know many fifty-somethings who don’t seem to know how to behave! And I bet you do too. But watching her behavior towards the other athletes ( and their response towards her) … warm and supportive… is really pretty impressive. She always seems to be able to smile and she always seems to have something nice to say. Interviews that I have seen seem genuine and candid. She doesn’t seem to obsess and seems simply happy for the experience. The other swimmers clearly are in awe. Heck, I am in awe. Again, pretty cool!

When you think about it for a for a bit, Dara entered the national/international scene at age sixteen years. Given that fact, it is true that she was swimming at this level before nearly all of her competitors here were born. Think about that for a moment. This might be the secret behind her ability to smile and “enjoy the moment.” It could also be that she has a two year old to share this with somewhere down the road.

I have been asked to comment about Dara’s success repeatedly as some of our recent research effort has been directed towards older athletes. “Is her performance remarkable? Could other older athletes achieve similar success? What makes Dara different? And of course… the cynical “is she doping?” My answers are always positive and supportive. To “is this remarkable?” I reply “ I don’t know!” And I really don’t. Mainly this is because few athletes at her age have made the attempt. There really isn’t much data that would suggest that what Dara is doing is impossible. Most research suggests that there are declines in physiological markers of aging that begin to show decrements in the mid-thirties. But you have to consider that most of this is cross sectional data and that it doesn’t take into account that most people become increasingly sedentary in their mid-thirties.

Athletes in other sports continue to excel into their late thirties and early forties. The winner of the women’s Olympic marathon yesterday (or maybe today) was 38 years old, I believe. There simply isn’t much data on middle-aged women and their ability to perform work. For one thing, who would fund such research? The federal government has set priorities for medical research and that pertaining to healthy people isn’t very far up on the list and understandably so.

To train at the level required to be successful at this level seems to require three things: opportunity, motivation and incentive. The first, opportunity, essentially comes down to a coach willing to train you, a pool in which you can swim, and adequate time to be able to train. Most athletes have the burden of trying to eat, pay the rent, and accomplish everything else in life that allows you to survive. Dara has had the opportunity.

Motivation is the next factor. This is out of my domain (as a physiologist) and perhaps could better be handled by a sport Psychologist such as our Dr Raglin here at IU. Motivation is a personal and or psychological issue that coaches (and athletes) deal with nearly minute to minute. It is difficult to understand what motivates athletes, let alone just plain people, to do what they do. Having dealt with two kids and two step-kids… all I can say is that it remains a topic of mystery to me.

The flip side of motivation, or a component of it, has to be incentive. This is often much more tangible and could be a contributor to motivation. It could be setting records ( Phelps - eight for eight in 08!) or it could be making money. It might be personal identity as an athlete or being a member of team. It might be representing the USA in the Olympics or setting an example for other women. In short, Dara clearly has/had the incentive to prepare for these Games. Former Coach Knight while still a member of the IU family once commented that “All athletes have the will to win, champions have the will to prepare to win!” Will implies motivation and incentive. Prepare requires the third component, opportunity.

From the biologist’s perspective, the data on aging suggests that performance and in this case athletic performance, declines at a rate that is roughly ½ of that of the common biological markers of aging. Many of these markers decline at or around one half percent per year after age 30 years or so. In Dara’s case, we could easily hypothesize that given she was an Olympic medalist at age 33 years (the oldest swimmer to do so and a record she has now extended by eight years!) even if her physiology caused a 2% decline over the last ten years, she started off being 5% faster than her competitors years ago!

You could ask, “why was she faster than her competitors way back when?” Good question. Relevant question. If there is an athlete whose stroke mechanics I would recommend our swimmers (and other swimmers) emulate… it is Dara Torres. She swims with mechanics that my mentor, Doc Counsilman, would love! She, in my opinion, has nearly flawless freestyle technique. Nothing fancy or unusual but simple classic freestyle mechanics.

Technique can trump limitations imposed by physiology and I suppose, psychology. Our other “technicians” include Michael Phelps in his fly, Aaron Peirsol swimming backstroke, Natalie Coughlin … in almost every event and the Japanese swimmer Kitajima in breaststroke. Rebecca Soni isn’t too bad either. But improvement in technique is something swim coaches should and necessarily do focus on. But as is often quoted in the coaching profession “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force him to drink.” Athletes make the changes, coaches coach. Athletes swim the races, coaches hold the stop watches.

So, to quickly draw conclusions here, consider this: Dara Torres might not be so unusual but there isn’t enough data to support this either way. She is truly a remarkable human specimen at six feet tall, lean and muscular. She has long arms and big feet. She has performed at the international level for more than twenty years. She is motivated, has incentive and has the opportunity to prepare for the USA Olympic Trials in such a way that has provided her with the chance to race here in Beijing. The question no one has asked yet, is: “can she do it again four years from now?” My answer would be… why not?

Now for something completely different:

The music within the hall is eclectic to be honest. It includes American country music (some song about a woman in a mini skirt) and Madonna (I think) and a little light rock. At first I thought I would like to have a cd of the music they play here. But after more than a week of listening to this at a decibel level just below that which could pop a balloon let alone shatter glass… I can only quote the famous boxer “no mas!” Does anyone know how to ask in polite Chinese “ Please, could you turn the music down – just a notch?”

And can you imagine attending a swim meet without a heat sheet? I quit asking officials on day three because I could tell there was a problem in translation. They kept responding to my question with “do not concern yourself with the heat. The pool is air conditioned.”

Jason Lezak continues to impress. I wouldn’t recommend mimicking his stroke mechanics though his results have to be placed up there with the best of all time. Michael needs to take him to dinner… twice. And pay. Phelps would have two fewer gold medals to his credit if Lezak were eating popcorn shrimp of the top of Jingwuay Mountian miles south of here. I hope that Jason is remembered in US Olympic history as one of, if not the best relay swimmers of all time.

Some final observations. China is changing and changing fast. There are things going on here that are incredible and would not have been possible ten years ago. I spent several hours yesterday visiting a ‘humong’. This consists of a cluster of homes built in the twelfth and thirteen centuries and still inhabited today. Many square miles of these were eliminated to build the venues for the Olympic Games. Estimates suggest that as many as 1.5 million people were displaced and their ancient homes destroyed to make way for this event. It isn’t clear what use the venues will be put to after the 2008 Games and yet the people here are proud of what they have been able to accomplish. Nevertheless, those Humongs which continue to exist have been designated as world heritage sites and currently protected from further removal.
Under the communist rule post WWII, there was repression and isolation from the world community. The Chinese remember this era well and are nearly universally optimistic about their personal future and that of their country. “Beijing” I was told by a local, “Is Washington D.C., New York City, Beverly Hills all combined. It is the best of China and a world into itself.” That is so true.

We spent time last night in a cultural district near the Forbidden City. Following a “two duck dinner” comprised of Peking Duck (kaoya) in a restaurant (QuanJuDe) whose doors first opened during America’s civil war (1864), we watched (with several hundred Chinese patriots) the USA women defeat the Chinese in volleyball. (no hard feelings right?) on a wall-sized TV. We then strolled a street (Jiuha Jie?) that I would have to say rivals (and combines) the French Quarters in New Orleans, the music strip in Nashville, Tennessee, Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain, Deep Ellum in Dallas and South Beach in Miami for being a chaotic mix of contemporary music, modern art, food, high fashion and people. I was very hesitant about visiting this area but our local friend made it clear that we had to see this to believe it. It was every bit the spectacle she promised and for me a shock to my senses. It has caused me to rethink my perceptions of China and the ‘Middle Kingdom.” The young people here are like young people everywhere. Through advances in technology and, of course, the internet, the world has become much smaller and in many ways much freer community. The creativity of the people of china was on full display (think of the architecture and artistic presentation of the opening ceremonies) and aptly reflects what I saw on this avenue. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me. But photos wouldn’t have done justice to the experience anyway. You can probably find some on the web if you are really motivated. It was a fitting end to my experiences in Beijing and China. It was also a much more fitting image of what the future entails here and what the organizers of the BOG-2008 games envisioned. The images we have of sullen workers in blue collarless garb is no more. The image of China should be of a creative, energetic and optimistic society rushing headlong into the future with confidence and hope. The doors are open and I encourage those of you who travel to consider Beijing as a interesting and unusual experience! Thanks for your interest in my travels, swimming and this and that. I hope you enjoyed my musings! See you soon in B’town.