Other features such as a greater depth and a smooth texture on the floors and walls of the pool to minimise drag may also have helped the swimmers to achieve their remarkable times. Despite the newly laid surface in Stadium Australia, the closest anyone came to rewriting the record books on the track was when the American 4x100m men's relay team won in a time two-tenths of a second behind their own 1993 world mark. Of course critics would argue that there are many reasons as to why the leading athletes failed to break any world marks. Firstly, there is no financial incentive to be gained from breaking a world record at the Olympics, as opposed to IAAF meetings where there are bonuses to be won. At these IAAF events, pacemakers are often brought into middle-distance races if a leading athlete specifies that they will be attempting to break a record.
Conditions also have to come into consideration.
Sydney's athletics competition was hampered by very changeable weather. Cram believes it's down to the individual Strong winds and heavy rain during the second week were not ideal for awesome feats of the type seen in balmy Atlanta four years ago. Olympic silver medallist and former mile record holder Steve Cram believes it was the athlete's prerogative to break a record and that conditions, incentives and other such factors were irrelevant. World marks could have fallen in Sydney but they didn't - it was just the nature of these Games. I don't believe that IAAF incentives are the only reason as to why an athlete breaks a record - because at the end of the day it is down to the individual.