[mojomark]

The original comment is likely accurate regarding the benefit to ditectly trailing swimmers, but probably not trailing swimmers where shed vortices are stable in adjacent lanes where shed vortices interact chaotically.

[giardini]

Alright, so we're agreed: the only solution is to build every swim-racing pool of individual lanes with solid walls between each!8-)) All lanes are then equivalent.

[necovek]

And if someone in lane 7 speeds ahead, they are likely not seeing any of the turbulence from other swimmers either