I think the point is it is a tremendous issue in swimmers, when the difference between them is measured in tiny fractions of a second & to suddenly best someone with one entire second is out of the ordinary.
It may be doping.
However, a friend of mine who was deeply involved in hot rod/car racing at national championships told me something that surprised me. He said “We could have set the record any time we wanted to be we didn’t because we wanted to save some back for the championships.” In other words, they were sandbagging. I wonder if some of that isn’t going on here?