[glennv]

That is exactly what i mean. Even if we can measure nanometers. Its the overall feeling that one records is clearly better then the other. The wow factor. Natalia knows how to do it. No one will doubt her records because she makes big leaps. I am sure that the respect you get for breaking a record by a big leap is also much bigger. I will most likely never break a world record but I am sure i would train my ass off to beat a record by a large margin to make sure there is no doubt if maybe different circumstances like temperature , waves, line stretch, salinity, whatever gave me just that bit of slight advantage to put me one meter deeper. Wouldn't feel good to me. I have done it with national records and it felt great. I purposely trained longer to make sure it did not just took a couple of seconds on the static record, but did more then 30 seconds each time i broke it. (as did the guy who just recently broke mine again)

Also a bigger gap rule would take the point away for some people doing the Sergei Bubka thing . Every time one meter more (when you can do 15 ) to milk the media and sponsors, which in itself is very smart and shows complete control but to me makes me completely loose interest in the performance.