With the 2016 Rio Olympics disappearing in the rearview mirror, the Swimnex crew that predicted Rio’s winning times is looking forward to Tokyo.
Swimnex is a predictive model that uses current meet results to project the times that will appear at the next Summer Olympics in three years. Swimnex is the brainchild of Joshua Neuloh and Thomas Kothe, and appeared on SwimSwam on several occasions leading up to the Rio Olympics.
Now, they’ve updated their model to look forward to the 2020 Olympics, and have once again been kind enough to share their data with SwimSwam. We’ve included it below, along with Swimnex’s press release explaining their system.
Here’s a look back at Swimnex predictions for Rio:
Swimnex press release:
Following the successful Swimnex™ table 2016 which predicted the 200m freestyle race by Katie Ledecky with a difference of 1/100 of a second or forecast the medals in the 100m backstroke women by an average error of just 0.1%, prognostications have now been published for the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Joshua Neuloh and a team of experts managed this time to recalculate over 40.000 individual races, over 1600 relay performances and over 600.000 calculations in addition to 1248 new races from the Rio Olympics in just six month and create a new Swimnex™ table. The Swimnex™ table is based on a mathematical algorithm predicting future performances at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Combining cutting-edge science with practical knowledge from the pool deck, the Swimnex™ table answers the question, which will be on everyone´s mind for the next four years. What makes it into the semi final, final, win a medal or leave everyone behind at the Tokyo Olympics?
The Swimnex™ table shows the required estimated minimum time to reach the respective stage at the 2020 Olympics, including individual races and relays. Although the Swimnex™ table is regularly updated based on past results and other covariates (technical aids etc.), the estimation is very robust close to the actual event. Only in the case of outstanding individual performances the algorithm alters accordingly. Overall, it determines the progress of swimming performances within a standard range of probability.
The Swimnex™ table is provided to coaches and their swimmers, national head coaches and everyone else, who wants to know the first event at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 marked with “World Record”.
Wow. Chase Kalisz with a new WR in the 400IM!
I predict the Japanese hosts will hand out diapers to all US swimmers departing nightclubs for the journey home .
I predict G.I.N.A will still be trolling in 2020
Some of the times are a bit odd, like Ledecky and Peaty going slower than past times.I think girls 4×100 free will go down before Olympics.
I think the thing to keep in mind is that this is an algorithm that is pulling the aggregate from not just the person who won the last olympics, but from thousands of swims. So somebody who is exceptionally outside of the norm (like Ledecky and Peaty) are going to fall outside of the projections because of how far out of the standard deviation they are. Now if an event is seeing several people being competitive and quick it is likely going to result in a WR like the mens 400 IM and 200 Breast.
If it is envisioned that world record at 200 free will be done by Ledecky (no other swimmer cares about that now and I don’t see who will) then she may not focus on longer distances at all swimming them for the win only. So if she is able to improve significantly her backstroke then I pretty much agree with proposed times: four individual gold medals and two world records at 200 free and 400IM. If her build doesn’t change during next three years and she stays strongly motivated in swinging then age 23 is the best time for doing that.
*swimming ( not swinging 🙂 )
“Girls”????
The world record in the mens 400IM is not going down…and do they really expect Ledecky to A) not win and/or B) gain 3 seconds?
*re Ledecky, I was referring to the 400 free
lol and the 800 for that matter
Absolutely disagree with the women’s 400 and 800 free. The men’s 100 breast is slow. I disagree with a lot of the projections but it is only for fun. I don’ t take the predictions too seriously. Personally, I DO believe that Tokyo is going to be an incredibly fast Olympics. But, we shall see.