The 2020 Japan Adult Swimming Championships wrapped up tonight, with former 200m breaststroke world record holder Ippei Watanabe posting a time of 2:08.69 to shake off his long course racing cobwebs.
Amidst many of the world’s best swimmers having limited competitions in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, Watanabe’s time ranks the World Championships medalist 4th among the 2020/21 season rankings. His compatriot Shoma Sato currently owns the top LCM 200 breaststroke time in the world with the big-time 2:07.02 he produced at last month’s Student Swimming Championships.
With the top tier of men’s 200m breaststrokers like Watanabe seemingly putting up 2:07 and 2:08 times as a matter of course, I wanted to put some numbers around how far this event has exponentially come in a relatively short period of time.
I grabbed all the men’s LCM 200 breaststroke times in the 2:06-, 2:07- and 2:08-ranges spanning 2010 and 2019 to take a look at how many more members of the pack entered new time brackets from year-to-year.
In 2010, for example, there were just 2 swimmers in the world that year who got under the 2:09 barrier. Only 2 years later that total more than doubled to 5 swimmers under 2:09, with an additional 3 entering the 2:07-zone.
The 2016 Olympic year was an especially notable breakout time period for the event, as 8 swimmers logged a time as 2:07.XX. This led to our first-ever swimmers getting into the 2:06 zone in Watanabe (2:06.67) and Russia’s Anton Chupkov (2:06.96) less than a year later.
Flash forward to 2019 and Chupkov landed on the record books with a new world standard of 2:06.12 posted in Gwangju, with his time now representing a real and present danger to the 2:06 barrier.
With next year’s Olympics bringing the best of the best to Tokyo, we will most likely need to revisit this data table with a new time column entered once those Games are done and dusted.
Men’s LCM 200 Breaststroke Top-Tier Times 2010-2019
| 2:06.XX | 2:07.XX | 2:08.XX | Total Swimmers under 2:09 for the year | |
| 2010 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 2011 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| 2012 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| 2013 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| 2014 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 11 |
| 2015 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 10 |
| 2016 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 11 |
| 2017 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 16 |
| 2018 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 16 |
| 2019 | 3 | 7 | 12 | 22 |
I think a big factor is that breastrokers tend now to be either 100 or 200 specialists rather than straddling the two. The best in the 100 (Peaty, Shymanovich, Cameron VDB) tend to be totally separate from the 200 (Chupkov, Watanabe, Yamaguchi, Sato, Matt Wilson, etc). There’s nobody in the world who I would describe as a favorite or co-favorite for a gold/silver medal in BOTH races. Whereas, 10 years ago, that wasn’t true. The breaststroke greats of the past straddled both distances (Hansen, Moses, Kitajima, Shanteau being prime examples). Personally I think that intense specialization is a big factor contributing to making the times more competitive.
Maybe Kaminga can break this trend if he keeps improving. 58.43/2:07.18 in March this year.
The cubic and linear correlations are stronger than the exponential
Just saying….
Great article, Retta
Thank you!
I’ve been waiting for the 3000, no 4000 years for this analysis
Barrowman took nearly 3 seconds off the record from 89-92, and that held for another 10 years. Since Kitajima broke that record in 2002, the record has had a very steady improvement, with the exception of Yamaguchi holding it for well over 4 years in 2012-2017. This article only covers the last 10 years, could easily start from 2002 to now, and it still looks crazy how much this event has improved over that time span.
You should also write about how men’s 200 free and women’s 200 fly deteriorated since 2010
Last year women’s 200 fly had the slowest world leading time since 2005. That’s crazy.
2005: Jedrzejczak 2:05.61
2006: Schipper 2:05.40
2007: Jedrzejczak 2:05.92
2008: Zige 2:04.18
2009: Zige 2:01.81
2010: Jiao 2:05.46
2011: Zige 2:04.40
2012: Jiao 2:04.06
2013: Jiao 2:04.54
2014: Belmonte 2:04.79
2015: Hentke 2:05.26
2016: Belmonte 2:04.85
2017: Belmonte 2:05.26
2018: Thomas 2:05.45
2019: Flickinger 2:05.96
Women’s 2Fl has been stagnant for 40 years. Gotta be the slowest progress of any event if u exclude the rubber suit times.
when you look those one might think that is not the better training that leads to better times but allowing technical things that were not allowed before like in breaststroke or bk starting thingy, fly have not had those
This doesn’t explain why 200 fly times on the men’s side have been coming down, even when you take out the GOAT from the picture.
Hasegawa to add in 2020.
1981 Maegher 2:05….
One of beat times in history of swimming..Woodhead 1.58 as a 13 yr old too in 200 free..
And the men’s 400 since 2000…
Agreed
Breaststroke generally has improved so much recently.
Kitajima’s 58.9 and 2:07 seem somewhat pedestrian these days.
Before the rules got changed- no dolphin kick at start/turn those days.
No LEGAL dolphin kick – they changed the rule rather than admit they missed the call on Kitajima.
David Wilkey 2.15 in 1976 is a much better swim then 2.07 or 2.08 today.
Exponentially – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”. – Vizzini
You are correct. Incorrect word choice/use.
Saying that 200 breast has been improving linearly doesn’t really have the same eye catching headline.
Webster’s definition – “characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase” – I’d say a drop to 2:06.12 from zero sub-2:08’s in 10 years suffices.
Ok, you got me. You had to go to the 3rd definition for that one, but it is listed in the dictionary that way. The more common definitions (and ones listed above yours) involve math – math where there should be 1028 BRs under 2:09 in 2019 and 2056 under in 2020 given true exponential growth. The only reason your definition is listed is because it is such a common mistake to say “exponentially” when what people mean is “really quickly”. I get it – “BRs improving a lot in last 10 years” is not as catchy a headline. And BRs are going very fast recently, just not exponentially faster. In the year 2030, they will likely not be going… Read more »
I actually think she did use it correctly–looks pretty close to exponential to me! Number of sub-2:09 doubles roughly every 4 years.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/kzrzbmucqk
Plus, you’d expect exponential increases in general for stats of the form “number under X:xx in a given year”.
Linear decreases in time lead to exponential increases in “number under X:xx”. For instance, look at the stats for a given year for sub-2:07 vs. sub 2:08 vs. sub 2:09. You get maybe double of triple the numbers when you go up by a second. So if the population of elite swimmers improves by one second on average, the number under a particular barrier would perhaps double in that time. The swimmers who were “just” sub-2:09 (or their successors) become the new sub-2:08 swimmers.
We could see this effect much better if we looked at an event that was rapidly improving,… Read more »
Seems due for a major breakthrough performance.