European Championships 2018 Performance Breakdown

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.

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Luigi
5 years ago

For all the fuss about the Italians dropping time, there is not a single Italian in the top ten droppers

Luigi
Reply to  Andrew Mering
5 years ago

Thank you, Andrew

Yozhik
5 years ago

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.

Yozhik
Reply to  Andrew Mering
5 years ago

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. 😀

Rush!
5 years ago

This is great. Have you included relay finals as well?