Aside from all the slow pool allegations, the Paris Games saw a slate of amazingly close races. On several occasions, the difference between gold and silver, silver and bronze, or being on/off the podium was down to hundredths of a second. Years of hard work culminating in falling short by the smallest fractions imaginable.
In addition, there was a lingering narrative that the United States did not show up and show out in the same way we have grown accustomed to. While they still topped the medal count and the gold total by the end (in part due to some last-night, world-record-setting heroics by Bobby Finke and the Women’s 4×100 medley relay), there were a few misfires as compared to expectations coming into the Games.
If you take all the close swims (within ~0.6) and compare them to the potential medals that were within reach, you see a world in which less than four cumulative seconds (3.12) could have earned the United States nine additional gold medals.
Close Event Table:
| Event | Swimmer | Original Place (Time) | New Place (Time) | Time Difference |
| Men’s 400 IM | Carson Foster | 3rd (4.08.66) | 2nd (4:08.62) | 0.04 |
| Men’s 100 Breast | Nic Fink | T-2nd (59.05) | 1st (59.03) | 0.02 |
| Men’s 200 Free | Luke Hobson | 3rd (1:44.79) | 1st (1:44.72) | 0.07 |
| Men’s 100 Back | Ryan Murphy | 3rd (52.39) | 1st (52.00) | 0.39 |
| Women’s 100 Breast | Lilly King | T-4th (1:05.60) | 1st (1:05.28) | 0.32 |
| Men’s 800 Free | Bobby Finke | 2nd (7:38.75) | 1st (7:38.19) | 0.56 |
| Women’s 100 Free | Tori Huske | 2nd (52.29) | 1st (52.16) | 0.13 |
| Men’s 50 Free | Caeleb Dressel | 6th (21.61) | 3rd (21.56) | 0.05 |
| Women’s 200 Back | Regan Smith | 2nd (2:04.26) | 1st (2:03.73) | 0.53 |
| Phoebe Bacon | 4th (2:05.61) | 3rd (2:05.57) | 0.04 | |
| Men’s 200 IM | Carson Foster | 4th (1:56.10) | 3rd (1:56.00) | 0.10 |
| Women’s 200 IM | Kate Douglass | 2nd (2:06.92) | 1st (2:06.56) | 0.36 |
| Women’s 50 Free | Gretchen Walsh | 4th (24.21) | 3rd (24.20) | 0.01 |
| Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay | USA (Murphy, Fink, Dressel, Armstrong) | 2nd (3.28.01) | 1st (3:27.46) | 0.55 |
| Total: | 3.12 | |||
These results would have resulted in the following change to the US Medal Table:
| Actual | New | |
| Gold | 8 | 17 |
| Silver | 13 | 8 |
| Bronze | 7 | 8 |
| Total | 28 | 33 |
While the overall improvement to total medals is not as striking, the difference in gold medal count is drastic especially considering it would have lowered Australia’s gold count from seven down to only four.
Things do not always go perfectly, and no race will ever be easy, especially at the Olympics. At the end of the day, the ones who show up on one particular race day in the middle of the summer every four years get to be immortalized in Olympic Glory.
However, this does not diminish the immense achievement of all those who compete for their countries at the Olympic Games, a feat that in and of itself can be regarded as the pinnacle: something people work their whole lives to earn.
For those who came home with the hardware, it is with a breath of relief, knowing some small shift in feeling or mood could have caused things to have ended very differently. And for those that did not, it is simply fuel to the fire for the next four years.
Bottom line is there were numerous events where USA swimmers didn’t even make finals and or faded in races last 10 meters…thus affecting medal count and color.
I tell especially the most advanced swimmers I get to work with we only are looking for one inch. One inch per stroke. And I tell them they will win by .01. I also tell them to act as if they are the least talented person who will win. Attention to detail is critical daily. And you can’t be the only one paying attention — you have to be in an environment where everyone might repeat a set because someone over rolled the back to breast turn, or someone pushed off on his front on a send-off; or someone one hand touched or shortened his pulldown, etc. And you have to be in an environment when everyone cheers as you… Read more »
Let’s also not forget this statistical analysis:
Australia population 27M
United States population 341M
(our ‘base draw’ outnumbers them 12:1)
So, how we are doing?
US population 341M
China population 1.4B
Don’t see the US making any excuses
Yes, in fact, you do. But no excuse is going to help. The great Bob Steel once said at a convention — I love swimming because a 20.9 is a 20.9 and on amount of BS is going to make it a 19.4!
Does anyone honestly believe the US losing in the 4x100m medley was some fluke? That they had a sliver of a chance at gold (when the butterfly leg already offered that chance)? When is half a body length margin a close-call? Wishful thinking exercise, methinks.
There was some level of fluke to it. China was 149.95 to the 200 wall in the mixed and 150.35 in the mens, whereas the US was 150.37 in the mixed and 151.41 in the mens. Both Murph and Fink were well off their times from the previous day, if they matched the Chinese decrease in performance day over day they win the relay.
I’m not quite following your numbers. The 149.95 is the time at the 200m for the mixed relay involving different legs? Were those the men’s legs? And the 150.35 the 200m point for the 4x100m medley relay, meaning the first two legs with Xu and Qin – who did step up and perform at their best (but Qin also did well in the mixed medley)?
Sure, Murph and Fink were a bit off but them’s the break. If we were to apply how one swimmer could have done well based on another event, Qin could have won the 100m and maybe 200m if he had performed as well as he did in the relay.
So, I’m speaking solely… Read more »
The same two people for China were .4s slower in the men’s than the mixed. The same two people for the US were 1.04s slower in the men’s than the mixed. There’s a level of flukiness of two people being that much slower 1 day later. “Them’s the breaks” implies an amount of randomness.
Its a bit like saying if x thousand people voted differently then someone else would have won an election, it just doesn’t work like that.
It’s not really meaningful if you only do it for the US
A well meaning article/analysis but with too many statistical holes imo.
– 0.6s is NOT a close margin or near miss other than distance racing
– 0.3+ for 100m is not close
– 0.2+ for 50m is a significant winning margin
As other comments have noted, an opposite count should be done to indicate how many medals would be lost by USA going the other way.
Re: Aussies gold count 7 down to 4. In all of these races, the end physical margin between first and best USA was not even close:
– W 100m back
– W 200m back
– M 50F
Not only that – nothing in the table above would have lowered Aussie gold counts. Only one of the races listed in the table where the US “would have won gold” was won by Aussies (200 back) – the rest was all won by a different country. Don’t really understand where the other 2 come from according to the author (W 100 back and M 50 free are actually not listed as US wins in the table). Moreover, even the W 200 back wouldn’t change anything if Regan Smith had swam 2.03.73 because that is the exact time swam by McKeown and hence they would have shared golds. The only thing that would have changed in the medal table based… Read more »
Yeah I didn’t get the 7 to 4 Aussies gold logic either so just guessed the author’s intention.
To add to the ??? The title is ‘Meet of INCHES…” is most cases the margins in the table equate to feet/s and in some cases a metre
Such as the almost 1.9m distance the US was behind in the men 4x100m medley relay. Where’s the eyeball popping emoji?
Looks like one of my comments got lost with an opening thread that vanished. No biggie.
Wow, imagine there being tight margins between the best athletes in the world.
Let’s be real, the US had 2 really close results (Sub 0.1) which they could have won gold.
Hobson (0.07) and Fink (0.02)
GB had 3 – Richards (0.02), Peaty (0.02) and Proud (0.05)
Germany had 1 (0.08), as did Canada (0.09)
I don’t really see the point of this article, unless it’s just to identify the fine margins nature of sport. It feels whiny and a bit unnecessary.
Not talking about the men 100 free.0.01 between second and third and 0.01 between the third and the forth.
But only Gold medals really matter in this simulation. Minor medals wouldn’t change the medal table
Yes, and the brits also lost a really great backstroker to a few inches past 15 meters underwater. They can whine or they can fix it. Still I love the idea of this article. It reminds us all to measure EVERYTHING in practice and in meets and to practice what Tony Robbins calls CANI (Constant and Never-ending Improvement).