... of a human body is repeatable to within 0.1% ... no swimming contest is making the claim that the result would be repeated with exactly the same finish and times if repeated ... its only making the claim that that was the finish on the day.

Indeed, if it were repeatable to that precision, there would be little point in racing.

In Oz, where they take their Olympic swimming coverage quite seriously, you not only hear the winning time and whether it broke a World Record or Olympic Record, but also the PB's (personal best time) of the individual ozzie swimmers and whether they did a new PB at the Olympics.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.