Night 3 of the 2024 Paris Olympics still continues to show that the times at this Olympics have been slower overall than in Tokyo. Depth has already been discussed as a factor but this isn’t just the depth as an independent factor. There seems to be a lot more going on here.
One reader, under the name “Wow” proposed that the fact that the Australian Olympic Trials pool depth was even shallower than the competition pool this week in Paris. The depth in the indoor 50 meter pool at the Brisbane Aquatic Center is 2 meters deep, shallower than the depth of 2.15 meters in Paris.
Despite the pool depth in Brisbane being shallower, the meet at least featured a World Record in the women’s 200 freestyle, an event that was contested tonight on night 3 where Mollie O’Callaghan was about a second off of her time from last month’s swim in Brisbane.
Replies to “Wow”‘s comment also give examples of other factors to consider here. Another factor is the field that the athletes are swimming in as the competition is faster here, causing more waves. One could give a counter argument to this and argue that the faster competition is fuel to the fire.
As far as the pool goes, temporary pools built for meets like these (another example being US Olympic Trials) cavitate much more than permanent pools do. According to the Indianapolis Star, the US Trials pool was 8.2 feet deep, about a foot deeper than the 7.05 feet deep pool in Paris. Two World Records were broken at US Trials with the women’s 100 fly and women’s 100 back.
Now, let’s look at the data. The chart below compares all events contested and all sessions of those events. The winning time was compared, the 3rd place was compared to show a difference in the podium (although this is not as important in prelims), and 8th was compared to show the slowest time it took to advance to the final and the slowest time in the final.
Which Place Was Faster Through 3 Days In Paris- All Sessions, All Events
| Tokyo | Paris | |
| 1st Place | 20 | 12 |
| 3rd Place | 21 | 12 |
| 8th Place | 21 | 12 |
*The women’s 100 butterfly is committed from the above tally as Maggie MacNeil‘s time from Tokyo tied Torri Huske‘s winning time from Day 2 in Paris. This explains the number being one less for 1st place.
These numbers were collected from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 analysis.
The pool is terrible and that’s on France. But the facts are that Team USA has been a big disappointment. The athletes and coaches have done their job but have been totally let down by the USA Swimming staff and administrators. After this debacle is over, there needs to be a TOTAL and COMPLETE housecleaning.
Maybe the pool is slightly long.
Comparing meet performances to seeded times swam by the same individuals to qualify for the meet in their events will likely provide a valid measure for quality of swims at a Pool. Do this over multiple Olympics and it may inform the “speed” of a pool reasonably well. Sure there can be some confounding factors, but whatever they are will more often than not be far less than comparing Olympic swims 3 or 4 years apart with differing athletes under differing conditions across many years rather than the same individuals across a few months, etc. For the 30 individual medalists through 3 days, the average medalist has swam .31 seconds per 100 meters slower than their seed times. It gets… Read more »
Why are the pools flat to begin with, regardless of depth? If they are temporary, what difference does it make? Seems like bland lack of innovation. Surely there must be some type of grooves or dimples that could direct the water in optimum direction and speed to reduce wake and benefit the swimmers above. Golf has been doing that type of thing for 50+ years, dating to dimple technology then grooves followed by ball flight. NBC ran a segment the other day regarding remarkable sophistication with Belgian cyclists and the road race time trial.
Of course, swimming places so much crap at the bottom of the pool for television purposes it might counteract the benefit of a channeled bottom.
Grooves/dimples here will have no effect whatsoever. However, the crap at the bottom of the pool is a very different story. First time I have seen so much stuff so close to the swimmers, especially near the walls. I think that could be a major factor.
What about baffles like a recording studio?
As a professor of aerospace and ocean engineering, I think you guys are misinterpreting the word “cavitation”. I can 100% say there is no cavitation going on here. Maybe you mean vibration or oscillation of the walls, which could be a negative or positive effect.
Is it a slow pool?- it seems as though it must be but WRs have been set at Chandler for example in 2 metre pools. Is it the transport issues leading to lack of rest? Is it the food? Is it the constant drug testing in the case of the Chinese?- if reports are true they are often tested here which means very little rest. Is it the beds?
I wish someone had a definitive answer.
Finals are also starting at 8:30pm Paris time, which seems pretty late. If you’re swimming later in the session you’re probably not racing until like 11:00pm.
But Rio was even later.
I don’t place any validity in the “slow pool” nonsense. Several olympic records have already been broken. I think it is just a coincidence that a lot of the medal winners are putting up times after their prime in previous Olympics.
Also keep in mind a final captures the results of one particular evening. If that men’s 100 br took place any other night, the top 8 could have been completely different.
The data is going to absolutely eat you alive.
A full analysis of when world records are set would be interesting. I feel like Phelps (& 2016 Ledecky) were unicorns in going best times in finals at the Olympics. WR set in semis or at smaller meets seen more common but I don’t have any data on it.
TLDR: between the London, Rio, and Tokyo Olympics, world records were broken 22 times. Out of those, 20 times it happened in finals. The only 2 times it happened before finals, the same swimmer later reset the world record in their finals swim as well.
In Tokyo, all 5 WRs were set in the final: Dressel with the 100 fly and Schoenmaker with the 200 breast were the 2 individuals, and then the W 4×200 free, W 4×100 free, and M 4×100 medley were all in the final as well.
In Rio, 7/8 WRs were set in finals: Peaty 100 breast, Murphy 100 back WR in the 4×100 medley final, Hosszu 400 IM, Sjostrom 100 fly, Ledecky 400/800 free,… Read more »
Yea, virtually every single top swimmer is swimming nowhere near their best times all at once and it is pure coincidence…. Could it end up being something other than the pool? Or maybe another factor outside of depth related to the pool? It’s possible, but the odds these times are a coincidence is zero.
I’d agree if it were just some events, but there’s a pretty clear pattern right now across pretty much every single event. There have been 10 individual finals so far and in like a solid 8 of them, the winning time was slower than expected. I don’t think any of them could really be described as faster than expected. I get Olympic finals nerves and whatnot but the 100 breast winner would have placed 8th in Tokyo, that’s genuinely ridiculous.
If you look at the races where ORs occurred, most of them had 1-3 leaders well out in front of the pack and clear of the turbulence, starting with Gretchen’s 100 fly semi. The tight races with everyone lined up have almost all been slower than expected.
As for Aussie trials, most of the races had very little parity and 1 or 2 clear favorites out in front ahead of the wash.