Swimming World Records
Why are swimming world records frequently being broken? Tim Harford Investigates.
World Records are being set at a much faster rate in swimming than in other sports. At the Rio Olympics, British swimmer Adam Peaty managed to break the men's 100m breaststroke world record twice in two days. Tim Harford speaks to swimming coach, Rick Madge, about the reasons swimmers keep getting better results in the pool.
Also, science writer Christie Aschwanden makes the case for the virtues of the 5,000 metre race. She says that in recent times it has become very popular for people to train to run a marathon. But when you look at the numbers, is the 5K a better distance?
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Charlotte McDonald
(Image: Britain's Adam Peaty swimming, credit: Reuters)
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Broadcasts
- Fri 12 Aug 2016 21:50GMT大象传媒 World Service except East and Southern Africa & News Internet
- Mon 15 Aug 2016 02:50GMT大象传媒 World Service Online, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview only
- Mon 15 Aug 2016 03:50GMT大象传媒 World Service East Asia
- Mon 15 Aug 2016 04:50GMT大象传媒 World Service Australasia
- Mon 15 Aug 2016 06:50GMT大象传媒 World Service East and Southern Africa & Europe and the Middle East only
- Mon 15 Aug 2016 14:50GMT大象传媒 World Service except News Internet