In an unusual wine to sport reference, I was intrigued by the comments during the Olympic coverage last night when one swimmer (guess who!) had only 30 minutes in between races (not to be out done by another female swimmer from the night before that did this in 10 minutes…but this is wine coverage here…), it was mentioned that he had to neutralize his malic acid.
This of course made me think of malolactic fermentation for wine!
I found it most interesting that during sports like swimming, it’s kinda doing the opposite. In viticulture, it is used to make wine softer by turning tart malic acid into creamy lactic acid. Whilst swimmers want to get rid of that lactic acid and bring on the energy producing acidity which presumably gives more power to their stroke of choice.
Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malolactic_fermentation
http://www.livestrong.com/article/482561-competitive-swimming-pain-oxygen-debt/
