2016 U.S. Olympic Trials Day 4 Prelims Performance Stats

2016 U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS

Day 4 prelims are complete. The session saw the first significant deviation from 2012 prelim performance levels. In the 2012 men’s 200 breast, 35% (45 of 129) of swimmers beat their seed time in prelims. This morning, only 14% (14 of 97) managed to beat their entry times. They added a lot more time too, a median of 1.5% this morning versus .6% in 2012 (in a ~2:10 race .9% is over a second).

Time changes in each event (positive percentage means slower):

2016 2012
Median Time Change % Who Went Faster # Faster Median Time Change % Who Went Faster
Men 100 Free 0.7% 25% 22 0.5% 28%
Women 200 Fly 1.8% 7% 7 1.6% 15%
Men 200 Breast 1.5% 14% 18 0.6% 35%

Michael Klueh again had one of the top time drops from seed. Yesterday, he had gone 2 seconds faster than his entry time in at the Canadian Trials in April. In the 100 free, he went faster than his entry time at Canadian Trials, but by only by .05. The biggest drop of the morning moved Alex Evdokimov from 71st to 11th in the 200 breast.

Biggest time drops in each event by percent:

Event Name Time Drop Seed Prelim Time
Men 100 Free Michael Klueh -1.6% 50.63 49.81
Women 200 Fly Ruby Martin -0.8% 2:12.69 2:11.62
Men 200 Breast Alex Evdokimov -2.7% 2:17.70 2:14.00

The only reward for swimming fast in prelims is a place in the semifinals. Generally, semifinals are close enough that low ranked swimmer can reasonably make the finals with a good swim. So far at this meet, in 9 semifinals, 5 women and 3 men ranked 12th or lower entering semis have made a final. The lowest ranked was Jonathan Roberts who jumped from 16th to 8th in the 200 free (he was 8th in the final). The biggest jump in places was Gunnar Bentz who went from 15th to 5th in the men’s 200 fly. The biggest jump for the women was Hellen Moffit who went from 15th to 6th in the 100 fly (she was 7th in the final). The biggest drops were Tyler Clary who went from 6th to 16th in the 200 fly and Shannon Vreeland who went from 6th to 15th in the 200 free. Here’s all the place changes so far:

Women 100 Back
Semi rank Prelim Rank Change
Smoliga, Olivia 1 1 0
Baker, Kathleen 2 8 6
Bilquist, Amy 3 2 -1
Stevens, Hannah 4 3 -1
Deloof, Ali 5 4 -1
Smiddy, Clara 6 6 0
Franklin, Missy 7 5 -2
Coughlin, Natalie 8 7 -1
Ariola, Grace 9 8 -1
Karosas, Tasija 10 11 1
Walsh, Alex 11 14 3
Smith, Regan 12 13 1
Galyer, Danielle 13 12 -1
Ochitwa, Annie 14 15 1
Nordmann, Lucie 15 10 -5
Garcia, Taylor 16 16 0
Women 100 Breast
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
King, Lilly 1 1 0
Hannis, Molly 2 6 4
Meili, Katie 3 2 -1
Hardy, Jessica 4 4 0
Haase, Sarah 5 3 -2
Cottrell, Andee 6 5 -1
Margalis, Melanie 7 9 2
Tucker, Miranda 8 14 6
Larson, Breeja 9 8 -1
Lazor, Annie 10 10 0
Raab, Allie 11 15 4
Spencer, Haley 12 16 4
Reaney, Emma 13 13 0
Anderson, Olivia 14 12 -2
Lawrence, Micah 15 7 -8
Ross, Katharine 16 11 -5
Women 100 Fly
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Vollmer, Dana 1 2 1
Worrell, Kelsi 2 1 -1
Gibson, Sarah 3 7 4
Bayer, Cassidy 4 3 -1
Stewart, Kendyl 5 4 -1
Moffitt, Hellen 6 15 9
Donahue, Claire 7 13 6
Flickinger, Hali 8 8 0
Mclaughlin, Katie 9 6 -3
Jones, Kaitlyn 10 10 0
Merrell, Eva 11 5 -6
Adams, Cammile 12 12 0
Martin, Ivy 13 14 1
Case, Lauren 14 10 -4
Lee, Felicia 15 9 -6
Labonge, Natalie 16 16 0
Women 200 Free
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Ledecky, Katie 1 1 0
Smith, Leah 2 2 0
Schmitt, Allison 3 4 1
Franklin, Missy 4 7 3
Margalis, Melanie 5 3 -2
Manuel, Simone 6 10 4
Runge, Cierra 7 5 -2
Mclaughlin, Katie 8 14 6
Henry, Sarah 9 16 7
Chenault, Chelsea 10 13 3
Drabot, Katie 11 11 0
Flickinger, Hali 12 7 -5
Comerford, Mallory 13 15 2
Gibson, Sarah 14 9 -5
Vreeland, Shannon 15 6 -9
Bispo, Karlee 16 12 -4
Women 200 IM
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Dirado, Maya 1 1 0
Margalis, Melanie 2 3 1
Cox, Madisyn 3 5 2
Leverenz, Caitlin 4 2 -2
Galat, Bethany 5 6 1
Eastin, Ella 6 4 -2
Small, Meghan 7 13 6
Cameron, Emily 8 8 0
Aroesty, Margaret 9 7 -2
Jones, Kaitlyn 10 9 -1
Raab, Meaghan 10 16 6
Zeiger, Brooke 12 14 2
Li, Celina 13 15 2
Mills, Kate 14 10 -4
Bispo, Karlee 15 12 -3
Malone, Kristin 16 11 -5
Men 100 Back
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Plummer, David 1 1 0
Murphy, Ryan 2 4 2
Grevers, Matt 3 5 2
Pebley, Jacob 4 2 -2
Taylor, Michael 5 3 -2
Lehane, Sean 6 6 0
Shebat, John 7 9 2
Taylor, Jake 8 7 -1
Stuart, Hennessey 9 14 5
Dale, Taylor 10 11 1
Godsoe, Eugene 11 8 -3
Ress, Justin 12 12 0
Mulcare, Patrick 13 10 -3
Harty, Ryan 14 12 -2
Katz, Austin 15 15 0
Griffin, Carter 16 15 -1
Men 100 Breast
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Cordes, Kevin 1 1 0
Miller, Cody 2 2 0
Prenot, Josh 3 3 0
Andrew, Michael 4 5 1
Wilson, Andrew 5 3 -2
Fink, Nic 6 9 3
Titus, Marcus 7 6 -1
Licon, Will 8 8 0
Mchugh, Brendan 9 7 -2
Hoppe, Connor 10 14 4
Finnerty, Ian 11 10 -1
Evdokimov, Alex 12 10 -2
Katis, Chuck 13 16 3
Whitley, Reece 13 13 0
Tierney, Sam 15 12 -3
Fiala, Brandon 16 15 -1
Men 200 Free
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Dwyer, Conor 1 1 0
Conger, Jack 2 2 0
Haas, Townley 3 4 1
Smith, Clark 4 3 -1
Lochte, Ryan 5 5 0
Clary, Tyler 6 8 2
Bentz, Gunnar 7 6 -1
Roberts, Jonathan 8 16 8
Rooney, Maxime 9 14 5
Klueh, Michael 10 13 3
Jaeger, Connor 11 15 4
Pieroni, Blake 12 7 -5
Wynalda, Michael 13 12 -1
Weiss, Michael 14 10 -4
Malone, Reed 15 9 -6
Grothe, Zane 16 11 -5
Men 200 Fly
Semi Rank Prelim Rank Change
Phelps, Michael 1 1 0
Clark, Pace 2 2 0
Shields, Tom 3 12 9
Kalisz, Chase 4 4 0
Bentz, Gunnar 5 15 10
Harting, Zach 6 11 5
Conger, Jack 7 3 -4
Seliskar, Andrew 8 10 2
Wright, Justin 9 9 0
Bollier, Bobby 10 14 4
Mccurdy, Christian 11 16 5
Klueh, Michael 12 7 -5
Hinshaw, Adam 13 8 -5
Higgins, Kyle 14 5 -9
Litherland, Mick 15 13 -2
Clary, Tyler 16 6 -10

Here’s how all the place changes are distributed:

image (11)

image (12)

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TAK
8 years ago

Biggest time drops in each event by percent are listed as negative numbers. The implies that the time was slower. If the chart label was biggest time change, then the negative numbers would be correct. A small quibble but presentation of data is important – and the chart is sloppy.

Hatt
8 years ago

And at the end it’s a normal distribution. I like sport statistics 🙂

Hswimmer
8 years ago

Women’s 200 fly needs to make more of a progression. 7% really sucks, hopefully they’ll all be faster tonight.

John haas
Reply to  Hswimmer
8 years ago

Most of the meet sucks for the majority of swimmers competing. Lots of variables involved i suppose but it warrants discussion.

Stay Human
Reply to  Hswimmer
8 years ago

They will. I think the 200 fly is the toughest of all the races that have semis; 3 fast 200 flys in 36 hours would be a nightmare to me. Camille, Kelsi, were both happy with their times so far.

By the way, I just caught that about Clary going from 6th to 16th in the 2Fly in the stats above. wow, if he hasn’t scratched yet, I think he should (along with the 2IM); he doesn’t have a great chance in the 2back but I think it’s way better than his chances in the 2Fly now and his last chance, really..

PKWater
Reply to  Stay Human
8 years ago

He won’t have a 200 free tonight…