2024 Olympics Race Data Breakdown: Women’s 200 IM

The French governing body for swimming (Fédération Française de Natation) recently released a data analysis booklet of each event raced at the Paris Olympics. In this data-packed guide, information including swimmers’ 25m splits, time spent underwater, total stroke count, and more are laid out in a table with a breakdown of each finalist’s information. Over the next few days, I’ll be choosing some of my favorite races from the Olympics and analyzing the data behind the world’s fastest swimmers.

This data gold mine, all in French, has four distinct sections: Laps (splits), Parties Nagées (Parts of the race swum), Parties Non Nagées (Parts of the race not swum, including the start, underwaters, and finish), and Mouvements (total strokes and such).

LOOKING BACK

One of the most anticipated events of this meet was the women’s 200 IM, with some of the biggest names in the sport like Summer McIntosh, Kate Douglass, Alex Walsh, and Kaylee McKeown finally getting the chance to all go head-to-head. This event was raced on the penultimate day of finals, and the final showed two interesting things: an empty lane in an Olympic final and a disqualification. Ella Ramsay, the original eighth qualifier coming out of semifinals, withdrew from the 200 IM final due to illness. Usually, this spot would go to the reserves, Anastasia Gorbenko and Ye Shiwen, but neither of the swimmers appeared in the final, leaving an empty lane. Alex Walsh, who swam the third-fastest time in the final, was disqualified after going past vertical on the backstroke-to-breaststroke turn. With this information, there were only six swimmers that earned a time in this year’s competition.

1. Summer McIntosh, Canada – 2:06.56
2. Kate Douglass, United States – 2:06.92
3. Kaylee McKeown, Australia – 2:08.08
4. Yu Yiting, China – 2:08.49
5. Abbie Wood, Great Britain – 2:09.51
6. Sydney Pickrem, Canada – 2:09.74
7. Ella Ramsay, Australia – DNS
8. Alex Walsh, United States – DSQ

LAPS (SPLITS)

To 50m (butterfly):

1. Douglass – 26.73
2. McIntosh – 26.80
3. Yu – 27.31
4. Wood – 27.43
5. McKeown – 27.59
6. Pickrem – 27.89

50m-100m (backstroke):

1. McKeown – 31.68
2. McIntosh – 31.80
3. Pickrem – 32.47
4. Yu – 32.74
5. Wood – 32.78
6. Douglass – 34.32

100m-150m (breaststroke):

1. Douglass – 35.75
2. Pickrem – 37.19
3. Yu – 37.37
4. McIntosh – 37.53
5. McKeown – 37.77
6. Wood – 37.87

150m-200m (freestyle):

1. Douglass – 30.12
2. McIntosh – 30.43
3. McKeown – 31.04
4. Yu – 31.07
5. Wood – 31.43
6. Pickrem – 32.19

With the 200 IM being a true test of a swimmer’s ability to swim all four strokes as fast as they can, it’s going to expose some weaknesses wherever it can. For example, Kate Douglass was the fastest in the field in every stroke (including a 1.44 second gap over everyone in the breaststroke) except for backstroke, where she was nearly three seconds behind the fastest split. Summer McIntosh, the winner of the race, was not the fastest swimmer on any leg, but she was right in the mix on every stroke, having the second-fastest splits on every stroke except for breaststroke. Kaylee McKeown fell back on the butterfly and breaststroke legs, but her backstroke and freestyle were enough to place her in to medal contention.

PARTIES NAGÉES (PARTS OF THE RACE SWUM)

This section provides the swimmers’ times from 15m to 45m, as well as their times from 65m-95m, 115m-145m, and 165m-195m, accounting for everything except the start, turn, and the finish. The following ranking is their total time spent “swimming.”

1. McIntosh – 1:18.55
2. Douglass – 1:20.25
3. McKeown – 1:20.63
4. Yu – 1:20.73
5. Wood – 1:21.42
6. Pickrem – 1:21.44

This metric isn’t as surprising as some of the others are when considering the total finish order, as the time spent “swimming” is the exact same as the finish order. While underwaters, starts, and turns can help you a lot in a shorter-distance race, the higher the distance the less total effect they tend to have on a race (in most cases). Despite this race being very close between McIntosh and Douglass for first and second place, McIntosh spent almost 2 seconds less than Douglass during the 120m in the middle of the pool.

PARTIES NON NAGÉES (PARTS OF THE RACE NOT SWUM)

This section highlights the start, turn, and finish of the race, including reaction times, time spent underwater, distance covered underwater, time to hit the 15m mark, and closing 5m time on each 50, alongside the distance from last stroke into the final wall. The following ranking shows the total time spent on starts, turns, and the closing 5 meters (15 meters off of and 5 meters into every wall).

1. Douglass – 46.67
2. McKeown – 47.45
3. Yu – 47.76
4. McIntosh – 48.01
5. Wood – 48.09
6. Pickrem – 48.30

The following ranking shows the distance (in meters) each swimmer spent underwater during this race:

1. Wood – 47.1
2. McKeown – 43.3
3. Yu – 39.5
4. Douglass – 39.1
5. Pickrem – 38.3
6. McIntosh – 37.9

These metrics further enunciate that there are multiple ways to win a race, and the idea that each swimmer plays to their own strengths when swimming the 200 IM. Summer McIntosh spent a full 10 meters longer on top of the water than Abbie Wood did, because underwaters are not as crucial to her race plan. Kate Douglass was the quickest through the auxiliary portions of her race, but still was bested by McIntosh. Douglass had the fastest time from each wall to the 15m mark (except for backstroke, where Yu Yiting had the fastest), showcasing UVA’s quick and efficient underwater style that has worked very well for her in the past. Yu Yiting continued to be within the top 3/4 swimmers in every metric from this race, consistent with her placing in a very safe fourth place.

MOUVEMENTS (STROKE)

This final section modeled the total strokes that each swimmer took during the race, and the following ranking shows from least strokes to most.

Butterfly:

1. Douglass – 18
2. McIntosh/Yu/Wood – 20
3. .
4. .
5. McKeown/Pickrem – 21
6. .

Backstroke:

1. Douglass/Yu/Wood – 35
2. .
3. .
4. McKeown – 37
5. Pickrem – 38
6. McIntosh – 39

Breaststroke:

1. Douglass/Pickrem – 19
2. .
3. Wood – 20
4. McIntosh/McKeown/Yu – 23
5. .
6. .

Freestyle:

1. Douglass – 38
2. Yu – 39
3. McIntosh/Wood – 40
4. .
5. McKeown/Pickrem – 42
6. .

TOTAL:

1. Douglass -110
2. Wood – 115
3. Yu – 117
4. Pickrem – 120
5. McIntosh – 122
6. McKeown – 123

With this event being so variable, the total stroke count is less important of a metric when considering the stroke count by each 50. For the butterfly leg, the amount of strokes taken is similarly correlated to their split times, with Douglass being the fastest but also taking the least strokes and McKeown and Pickrem taking the most and touching the 50m mark later than their competitors. Pickrem and Douglass’ low stroke rate on the breaststroke leg checks out with their experience in the 200 breaststroke, as both of the swimmers made appearances in the semifinals of the breaststroke event, with Douglass going on to win it outright.

Each swimmer between McKeown, McIntosh, and Douglass won a 200 distance event prior to swimming the 200 IM, and their stroke counts and splits showed some interesting things about the similarities/differences between their two races. For example, McIntosh took out her 200 butterfly in 19 strokes and a 27.38, similar in strokes but not time to her 200 IM (20 strokes, 26.80). The second 50 of McKeown’s backstroke showed 38 strokes and a 30.88 split, whereas she took 35 strokes and split a 31.68 on the second 50 of her 200 IM (three strokes more and nearly a second slower). Douglass, in her 200 breaststroke-winning swim, split a 35.81 and took 17 strokes on her third 50, compared to her 19 strokes and 35.75 in her 200 IM, (similar in time but not stroke count.). It’s no surprise that each swimmer has a different race plan between their individual stroke events and their IMs, but it’s interesting to see how the prior/following legs of the IM affect the fastest swimmers in the world.

For the previous data breakdowns, see the following articles:

• Women’s 50 Free
• Men’s 100 Breast

For the full breakdown: see the booklet here.