2016 U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS Sunday, June 26 – Sunday, July 3, 2016 CenturyLink Center, Omaha, Nebraska SwimSwam Preview Links and... Current photo via Mike Lewis/Ola Vista Photography
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 Kluehagain 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.
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:
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.
I think there are two ways to look at this. Either “positive means they got better, negative means they did worse” or “positive means the time went up and negative means the time went down.” They’re both valid, but I had to pick one. I picked the second because I use the old time as the baseline.
The calculation is:
(new time – old time)/old time
Hatt
7 years ago
And at the end it’s a normal distribution. I like sport statistics 🙂
Hswimmer
7 years ago
Women’s 200 fly needs to make more of a progression. 7% really sucks, hopefully they’ll all be faster tonight.
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..
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.
I think there are two ways to look at this. Either “positive means they got better, negative means they did worse” or “positive means the time went up and negative means the time went down.” They’re both valid, but I had to pick one. I picked the second because I use the old time as the baseline.
The calculation is:
(new time – old time)/old time
And at the end it’s a normal distribution. I like sport statistics 🙂
Women’s 200 fly needs to make more of a progression. 7% really sucks, hopefully they’ll all be faster tonight.
Most of the meet sucks for the majority of swimmers competing. Lots of variables involved i suppose but it warrants discussion.
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..
He won’t have a 200 free tonight…