2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
- Open Water Swimming: August 8 – 9, 2024
- La Défense Arena — Paris, France
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- Prelims Live Recaps: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5
- Finals Live Recaps: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5
The times at this week’s Olympic Games are slow. That’s part of the story of swimming at these Olympics. We’ll probably continue talking about that this week, because this is swimming, but I won’t rehash every detail of that here.
Times do matter in swimming. As sports in general shift toward deeper analytics, times will continue to matter in swimming, with deference to the opinions of the organizers of the International Swimming League.
But they’re not all that matter. Especially not at the Olympics. Here, more than any other swim meet in the world, winning matters. A poll we conducted in 2020 revealed that 81% of SwimSwam readers would rather have an Olympic gold medal than a World Record, and I think that’s the right answer.
It’s not an either or. The best version of swimming at the Olympics has exciting gold medal winning swims, and fast times breaking World Records and National Records and Olympic Records (there have at least been a bunch of those this week). Those are the stories that capture the most attention from the general public and brings the most people into the sport. We can’t avoid learning why this meet has been slow and trying to correct it in future events.
At almost any meet in the quadrennial calendar, the hardcore swim fans would choose fast times before they would choose great races, if they had to. But the Olympics are different, and if our preference in the Olympics are upsets, come-from-behinds, battles down to fingernail touches…then these Games have delivered in spades.
David Popovici won the 200 free by .02 seconds, the smallest margin in Olympic history; Daniel Wiffen held off Bobby Finke‘s famous last-50 charge in the men’s 800; the men’s 100 breaststroke podium saw three swimmers separated by two hundredths; and the women’s 100 free saw the top four within .18 seconds.
Leon Marchand in front of a home crowd running down Kristof Milak, surging past him in the last 20 meters, after Milak looked like he might famously defy the critics of his focus leading into these Games.
While World Records capture literal headlines better than exciting races might, exciting races can pull eyeballs to the video side of the sport – which is an area where swimming really needs to grow and evolve.
Pan Zhanle‘s World Record in the 100 free on Wednesday saved this from becoming the first Olympics since 1952 without an individual World Record, and even then, the swimmers chasing him were generally well-shy of their bests. Even with Pan’s swim, the great stories and great battles in this meet have outweighed the records so far.
Those of you who read SwimSwam know the stories and have a head start. You know why Wiffen holding off Finke is so thrilling. You know why Nicolo Martinenghi out-touching Peaty for gold is such a thrill. You know why MOC versus Ariarne Titmus is such a big matchup. Grab those moments, lean into those moments, and find that joy even where the records aren’t falling.
Discuss the times, feel the races.
Since when are Olympic records slow!!
The pool is slow, but if you swim angry like Pan you will crush
I have been plenty entertained, the only upsetting thing is how the IOC and organizers have treated the athletes.
Winning times might not be meeting lofty expectations, but depth of times can still be improving
https://swimswam.com/2024-paris-olympics-day-5-finals-fun-facts/#comment-1445422
So what exactly allows Pan and Leon to post times that they did as opposed to everyone else?
Media is exaggerating pool being slow! 95% of sports don’t even have WRs or fast surfaces. It rained the day of women’s road race. Olympic athletes all deal its same scenarios, all swimmers hare racing in the same pool and they give out medals based on who gets their hand on the wall first!!!! Simple!
American media is trying to disguise that USA men haven’t won an individual Gold yet! European men are just racing better at top. USA is doing fine getting plenty of medals and the races have been extremely well.
Get your hand on the wall before everyone else!
It seems to be that, to some extent, getting out to an early, substantial, and sustained lead mitigated the shallow pool’s effects with regard to waves/currents due to the relatively unperturbed water they were swimming in.
We can, but if makes me way less likely to tune in to watch Prelims if I know no big records could be broken.
you barely ever get a records in the prelims at any meet, I do wish there were a few more swimmers in each event (will have an opinion in another post).
As a general rule, records don’t really get broken in prelims anyway.
I guess you don’t like 95% of sports that don’t have world records or any records!?
I understand the racing aspect being improved but that lingering feeling of what time someone could have gone in a correctly designed pool plus the idea of ‘responders’ ie guys who swim the races differently/physically more suited to dealing with waves given more/less of an advantage will always tarnish this meet for me. That being said I have loved it so far, even if GB have missed out on golds by 0.02 twice already.
The guys who can deal with the waves have an advantage here, but the guys who can’t swim the waves have the advantage in less waves… in either condition, one group has an advantage over the other. Why is one advantage right and the other wrong?
The men in 100free who got silver and bronze were 7th and 8th at 50! They fought thru waves better…..people who swam smart races and were strong the last 50 are winning most races!
I wonder how much the shortened Olympic cycle from Tokyo to Paris is affecting things.
In my view, minimally
The only things I think might have been impacted by this are athletes who had a year off after Tokyo having less time to get back (e.g. Dressel, Peaty, etc.)
Times are down of Fukuoka and many of the biggest names are people who weren’t around as meaningful contenders in Tokyo
We also have a pretty high number of podium repeats