European Championships wrapped up this last week. There were many impressive swims. We’ve covered the team trophy, and the medal table, but there is more performance information that we can look at.
Let’s start with finals appearances. Russia and Italy tied for the most with 37 finals appearances in individual events. Next were Great Britain with 29 and Germany with 24.
Germany had the highest percent of prelims swims that ended up making finals (57%). They were the only country over 50%. Next was Italy at 47% and Spain at 44%.
Oddly Sweden had three swims in swim offs.
Turkey scratched the most psych sheet entries (15). Hungary (13), Poland (12), Austria (12), and the Netherlands (10) also had quite a few scratches.
Number of Individual Swims
| Final | Semi | Prelim | Psych | Swim-off | |
| Albania | 10 | 12 | |||
| Armenia | 13 | 15 | |||
| Austria | 1 | 6 | 51 | 63 | |
| Azerbaijan | 2 | 1 | 6 | 10 | |
| Belgium | 3 | 8 | 20 | 24 | |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Belarus | 2 | 5 | 26 | 26 | |
| Bulgaria | 1 | 2 | 12 | 16 | |
| Croatia | 2 | 5 | 22 | 22 | |
| Cyprus | 5 | 6 | |||
| Czech Republic | 4 | 10 | 35 | 35 | |
| Denmark | 7 | 18 | 48 | 50 | |
| Spain | 12 | 12 | 27 | 28 | |
| Estonia | 1 | 56 | 62 | ||
| Finland | 3 | 8 | 43 | 52 | 1 |
| France | 12 | 20 | 48 | 55 | |
| Faroe Islands | 6 | 6 | |||
| Great Britain | 29 | 42 | 88 | 92 | |
| Georgia | 8 | 8 | |||
| Germany | 24 | 22 | 42 | 44 | |
| Greece | 9 | 14 | 32 | 33 | |
| Hungary | 18 | 21 | 55 | 68 | 1 |
| Republic of Ireland | 1 | 10 | 20 | 24 | 1 |
| Iceland | 1 | 4 | 4 | ||
| Israel | 1 | 11 | 46 | 55 | |
| Italy | 37 | 43 | 79 | 80 | 1 |
| Kosovo | 15 | 17 | |||
| Latvia | 18 | 18 | |||
| Liechtenstein | 3 | 7 | 7 | ||
| Lithuania | 7 | 9 | 28 | 29 | 1 |
| Luxembourg | 1 | 8 | 9 | ||
| Moldova | 1 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Malta | 12 | 12 | |||
| Netherlands | 12 | 27 | 43 | 53 | |
| Norway | 3 | 1 | 19 | 24 | |
| Poland | 8 | 18 | 58 | 70 | 1 |
| Portugal | 5 | 7 | 34 | 36 | |
| Romania | 2 | 2 | 8 | 8 | |
| Russia | 37 | 42 | 91 | 93 | 2 |
| Slovenia | 3 | 2 | 18 | 21 | 1 |
| San Marino | 19 | 19 | |||
| Serbia | 4 | 7 | 16 | 17 | |
| Switzerland | 2 | 13 | 37 | 38 | 1 |
| Slovakia | 30 | 33 | |||
| Sweden | 9 | 13 | 52 | 56 | 3 |
| Turkey | 1 | 5 | 77 | 92 | |
| Ukraine | 7 | 7 | 25 | 25 | 2 |
Time performance vs psych sheet times isn’t a perfect measure of individual success, but it is at least decent. Psych sheet entries usually represent a swimmer’s recent best effort. The median for men at this meet was an add of .6% (780 times, standard deviation 1.3%) when comparing their best time from any round to the psych sheet. The median for women was a time add of .7% (616 times, sd 1.5%). If we limit that to swimmers that made finals men added .2% (134 times, sd .9%) and women added a median of .2% (131 times, sd 1%).
The best single country performance by seed was by the Faroe Islands whose swimmers dropped an average of .5% on 17 swims. The worst came from Cyprus whose swimmers added an average of 3% to 6 swims. If we restrict to countries with more than 25 swims the best performing country was Denmark where swimmers dropped 0.0% from their seed times on 53 swims, and the worst performing country was Israel whose swimmers added 1.5% to 59 swims.
Time Change Data
| Women | Men | Combined | ||||
| Avg Time Change | Number of Swims | Avg Time Change | Number of Swims | Avg Time Change | Number of Swims | |
| Albania | 1.4% | 3 | -0.6% | 9 | 0.0% | 12 |
| Armenia | 1.1% | 4 | -0.7% | 11 | -0.2% | 15 |
| Austria | 0.7% | 30 | 0.6% | 37 | 0.6% | 66 |
| Azerbaijan | 1.2% | 7 | -1.9% | 3 | 0.2% | 10 |
| Belarus | 1.5% | 7 | 1.4% | 21 | 1.4% | 28 |
| Belgium | 1.0% | 13 | 0.7% | 15 | 0.9% | 27 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | -0.4% | 3 | 1.4% | 2 | 0.3% | 5 |
| Bulgaria | 0.3% | 7 | 1.5% | 9 | 1.2% | 16 |
| Croatia | 0 | -0.2% | 23 | -0.2% | 23 | |
| Cyprus | 3.0% | 6 | 0 | 3.0% | 6 | |
| Czech Republic | 0.8% | 20 | 0.9% | 16 | 0.8% | 36 |
| Denmark | 0.0% | 43 | 0.2% | 10 | 0.0% | 53 |
| Estonia | 0.9% | 26 | 0.0% | 42 | 0.3% | 65 |
| Faroe Islands | -0.1% | 3 | -0.9% | 3 | -0.5% | 6 |
| Finland | 0.8% | 26 | 1.7% | 29 | 1.3% | 54 |
| France | 0.9% | 27 | 1.0% | 33 | 1.0% | 58 |
| Georgia | 0 | -0.2% | 8 | -0.2% | 8 | |
| Germany | 1.1% | 23 | 0.5% | 27 | 0.8% | 47 |
| Great Britain | 1.0% | 45 | 0.5% | 53 | 0.8% | 95 |
| Greece | 0.2% | 10 | 1.1% | 25 | 0.8% | 35 |
| Hungary | 0.4% | 33 | 1.1% | 41 | 0.8% | 71 |
| Iceland | 3.3% | 2 | -1.0% | 2 | 1.2% | 4 |
| Israel | 1.7% | 25 | 1.3% | 37 | 1.5% | 59 |
| Italy | 0.5% | 42 | 0.4% | 44 | 0.4% | 83 |
| Kosovo | -0.9% | 9 | -0.2% | 8 | -0.5% | 17 |
| Latvia | 1.4% | 12 | 0.8% | 6 | 1.2% | 18 |
| Liechtenstein | 0.4% | 4 | -0.6% | 3 | 0.0% | 7 |
| Lithuania | 0.7% | 6 | 0.7% | 26 | 0.7% | 32 |
| Luxembourg | 0.7% | 2 | 1.7% | 7 | 1.4% | 9 |
| Malta | 0 | 1.7% | 12 | 1.7% | 12 | |
| Moldova | -0.4% | 5 | 0 | -0.4% | 5 | |
| Netherlands | 0.8% | 37 | 0.6% | 30 | 0.7% | 64 |
| Norway | 1.5% | 9 | 0.1% | 17 | 0.8% | 26 |
| Poland | 1.2% | 32 | 1.3% | 44 | 1.3% | 73 |
| Portugal | 0.9% | 16 | -0.1% | 20 | 0.3% | 36 |
| Republic of Ireland | 2.2% | 3 | 0.9% | 23 | 1.1% | 26 |
| Romania | 0 | 1.2% | 8 | 1.2% | 8 | |
| Russia | 0.8% | 41 | 0.9% | 58 | 0.9% | 96 |
| San Marino | 2.1% | 14 | 0.4% | 6 | 1.6% | 20 |
| Serbia | 0.0% | 3 | -0.2% | 17 | -0.2% | 20 |
| Slovakia | 2.0% | 17 | 0.6% | 22 | 1.2% | 36 |
| Slovenia | 1.6% | 21 | -0.5% | 1 | 1.5% | 22 |
| Spain | 0.6% | 23 | 0.4% | 12 | 0.6% | 34 |
| Sweden | 1.2% | 29 | 0.7% | 32 | 1.0% | 59 |
| Switzerland | 0.2% | 25 | 1.0% | 17 | 0.5% | 41 |
| Turkey | 1.1% | 40 | 0.2% | 59 | 0.6% | 96 |
| Ukraine | 2.4% | 4 | 0.2% | 21 | 0.6% | 25 |
The biggest single time drop of the meet belonged to Batuhan Hakan of Turkey in the 400 free where he dropped nearly 12 seconds (4.8%) from his 4:08.73 seed time. This moved him from 39th seed to 28th in prelims.
Biggest Drops
| Country | Event | Time Change | Seed | Time | |
| Hakan Batuhan | TUR | 400 Freestyle | -4.8% | 4:08.73 | 3:56.81 |
| Goer Rasim Ogulcan | TUR | 100 Backstroke | -4.6% | 1:00.7 | 57.9 |
| Meilutyte Ruta | LTU | 50 Freestyle | -3.8% | 26.03 | 25.04 |
| Blaskovic Bruno | CRO | 50 Freestyle | -2.9% | 22.71 | 22.06 |
| Sebestyen Dalma | HUN | 100 Butterfly | -2.9% | 1:02.59 | 1:00.80 |
| Murdoch Ross | GBR | 50 Breaststroke | -2.7% | 28.04 | 27.27 |
| Ukimeraj Dren | KOS | 50 Backstroke | -2.7% | 30.62 | 29.78 |
| Hakan Batuhan | TUR | 200 Freestyle | -2.7% | 1:54.89 | 1:51.76 |
| Jensen Julie Kepp | DEN | 50 Butterfly | -2.7% | 27.35 | 26.62 |
| Glinta Robert-Andrei | ROU | 50 Backstroke | -2.7% | 24.78 | 24.12 |
The biggest rise in places vs seed was Bruno Blaskovic of Croatia who jumped 46 places in the 100 free by going from a seed time of 50.01 (seeded 54th) to a time of 48.88 (he was 8th in finals). The biggest fall in places was Antani Ivanov who dropped from 30th to 59th in the 50 fly by going from a seed time of 23.91 to a prelims time of 24.99.
For all the fuss about the Italians dropping time, there is not a single Italian in the top ten droppers
The highest ranked Italian on the biggest times dropped list is at 61. With that said, biggest time drops is a stat that depends a lot on context. A lot of the time the very biggest drops come from swimmers that don’t have much history in an event, so their seed times aren’t as good. Countries that are deeper don’t have many people swimming their second tier events at a championship meet like this one, so even small time drops can be impressive. On the whole the Italians performance vs seed was essentially average. A few time drops from already highly seeded swimmers can go a long way toward bumping up medal count and driving narrative about a country’s performance.
Thank you, Andrew
It would be interesting to see if the statistical analysis confirms with reasonable probability the hypothesis that the jetlag effect took place and affected performances in finals. Or it is just another excuse.
I think there are too many confounding variables and unknowns to properly test that question with much confidence, but I would love to know.
It’s true. Sometimes the competition for the spot on WC team was the only motivation for some swimmers and that determined the prelim-final strategy.
So let’s rely in this matter on opinion of Swimswam forum regulars: they know everything. 😀
This is great. Have you included relay finals as well?
Nope. Individual events only.