Under Pressure: Do Swimmers Come Through in the Clutch?

by Robert Bernhardt 26

April 19th, 2014 Lifestyle, Opinion

“Clutch” may be the most overused word in American sports. It is considered to be the mark of a true champion. Tom Brady has it. Michael Jordan has it. Tony Romo and LeBron James allegedly don’t have it.

Clutch is when an athlete performs best under the highest pressure situations, coming through better than ever against the most insurmountable odds. Babe Ruth in the World Series. Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals. Tom Brady in the NFL Playoffs.

Michael Phelps in the Olympic Games?

Is swimming a sport of tense-interpersonal competition and performance at the biggest stage? Or is it a one man struggle against hypothetical times on a scoreboard?

ARGUMENT 1: Swimming is a drag race for time. Any illusion of superior competitiveness, desire or clutch is merely a product of a swimmer’s time being faster than the people in the next lane over.

Unlike other sports, the competition in swimming is hypothetical. In basketball you can strategically foul a poor shooter to make him miss free throws. In baseball you can walk a dangerous hitter. In swimming, you cannot change your opponent. There is no strategy that can somehow make Tom Shields’ turns irrelevant or nullify Sun Yang’s closing speed.

If the person next to you swims 48.0 and you go 48.1, that person happened to be faster and it wasn’t a product of special strategy or racing beyond what get’s a person a 48.0. If the races had been done separately the same result should happen. The pool is the same, the other person can swim the same pacing and do the same strokes and still go a tenth faster. Physical attributes, medals, records and alleged mystical “clutch” don’t matter. The person next to you is a time to be beaten. All you can do is swim your own race and hope for the best. If you do your best and go 47.9 and the legendary “clutch” opponent goes 48.0, you win. If you go 48.1 then he won because his best happened to be a tenth faster than yours, not because he has the magic reach of angels in the last 5 meters.

But as swimming fans, we love to support this myth. “Caeleb Dressel can handle pressure!” No, he can swim a 48.9, which happens to be a very, very fast time. It takes no special confidence to race in a National final other than knowing he’s under 49 and the Olympian next to him is also under 49.

“Michael Phelps knows how to get there first!” No, he is the best swimmer in the world so he’s faster than the people next to him. His comebacks are because he’s a great back-half swimmer, not because of a special touch.

Often, what people attribute to being “clutch” is simply the product of a small sample size and human statistical biases.

For instance, many would say Nathan Adrian is a legendary under-pressure performer for winning the Olympic gold medal on the biggest stage, the Olympic Games, by the smallest of margins, 0.01. Of course he also finished 4th in the 50 free by 0.01 in 2011, the same meet where he went in as a major medal hopeful in the 100 free but added 2 tenths to his semis time and finished 6th. In 2013 he missed out on the silver medal by almost the same margin he won by the year before and failed a replicate a potentially medal-winning time from US Nationals in the 50 free.

Others would say that Michael Phelps is the greatest pressure swimmer ever. Really? He was somewhat lucky a few times in the Olympics. Sure he won the 100 fly three times by 0.05 or less. He also lost the 100 fly in 2003 by 0.12, the silver in the Athens 200 free by 0.07, The 200 IM in 2011 by 0.16, and the 200 fly in London by 0.05. Phelps might be a tremendously consistent performer at the highest level, but does he truly will himself ahead in close races? It would seem that when the difference is less than two tenths, his chances of winning come out to roughly random chance.

Pressure performances and legendary finishes are an illusion we create as followers in order to present our favorite swimmers as somehow special from the others. However there is no factual basis for believing one swimmer is clutcher than another.

ARGUMENT 2: Performing under pressure is vitally important to success at the highest level. The all-time greats manage to swim fastest under the most pressure-filled conditions.

In any given event in a year, the world top-10 list may be radically different from the placings at major meets, especially in the sprints. In 2013 final of the 50m butterfly, the bronze medal winning time was 23.11. There were nine people who swam faster than that time, either in prelims, semis or finals. But only three people equalled or matched 23.11 in the final, meaning that a whopping six potential medal winners underperformed when it counted. In the 50 freestyle, before the final three people had been under 21.50. The bronze-medal time was 21.51 but none of those three won a medal.

In fact this is a relatively frequent occurrence. In 100m races it’s somewhat common for people to add time from semis to finals, and not rare for someone to swim a medal-worthy time in prelims or semis but falter less than two days later. In fifties, it’s almost expected that on average one medal favorite will come through semis with a blazing time but will add time in the race that matters. If times from National Trials are included, often even swimmers in longer events do not perform their season best in the World or Olympic finals.

However, take the greatest sprinters of their respective eras: Alexander Popov and Cesar Cielo. In the eight world-level events I could find prelim/semi data on Popov, in all but one instance Popov improved upon his prelims time. Cielo improved upon his prelim and semis times in eight out of ten races.

That consistency and ability to perform the best  in the most important times is what allowed them those sprinters to accumulate a combined 5 Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles.

Furthermore, there is some truth in the legend surrounding Michael Phelps. Phelps knows how to perform in a final. In all but only a few instances in over a decade has Phelps ever failed to improve upon a semi-finals time in the final, and indeed perhaps over 90% of his season bests in all years have come from the finals of major International meets, except of course where he got faster still after the global event.

Thus, the greatest swimmers have consistency, innate competitiveness and ability that lets them perform their best on the biggest stage while others often fail to live up to previous standards.

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Josh
9 years ago

The most clutch swimmer ever is Tamas Darnyi of Hungary. In the eleven years between 1982 when he emerged on the junior scene and 1993 when he retired, he NEVER lost a 200 or 400 IM race. Not at any level, from developmental meets to invitationals to Europeans, Worlds or Olympics. NEVER.

Admin
Reply to  Josh
9 years ago

Josh – I think the whole point of this article is does that make him ‘clutch’ in the generally accepted sense? Or does that just make him really good?

Josh
Reply to  Braden Keith
9 years ago

I think it makes him both. Obviously, he’s really good – when Dolan broke his 400 IM mark in 1994, he only got it by hundredths, and it took him until 2000 to get faster than that – but he’s also clutch. A clutch swimmer is one you can depend on to deliver at the highest stakes, every time. If everything else is going pearshaped for Hungary at a meet, you can throw Darnyi in the pool and guarantee two golds. And so it went for eleven years. That’s clutch.

sven
9 years ago

I think that the “clutch” factor exists in swimming, but that it manifests differently than in other sports.

I think in most other sports, it’s usually a more “skill-based” result– sinking a basket or making a ridiculous catch for a TD. You’re overcoming odds that are based on timing and accuracy being perfect, but not that it should be physically unfeasible. So it’s the ability to control your timing and accuracy when the pressure gets ramped up to 11.

In swimming, I think we usually see it as the ability to always “dig deeper” when you know it counts the most. Lezak, as other people have mentioned. I think it happens when you have a fast opponent and you get… Read more »

flutterby
9 years ago

If we looked at the NCAA men’s championships this year on paper ahead of time, we would not have placed Cal in first. But at the meet, nearly every swimmer on the team came through when it counted. They put in clutch performances. Yes, numerous swimmers swam slower in the finals than they did in the heats. But getting in the finals was the name of the game. Meanwhile the Michigan swimmers, who looked much better on paper, underperformed.

If you do your best times of the year at the most important meet, you are putting in a clutch performance.

Mark Savage
9 years ago

Thanks for the fine article.

Liquid4TheGOAT
9 years ago

Michael Phelps is the greatest pressure swimmer ever because he won eight gold medals against incredible competition over 7 days, when even fellow legends like Thorpe said it couldn’t be done. He knew that Cavic was ahead of him and right next to him when he touched him out by .01 for the 100 fly gold in Beijing. In fact, even though Phelps may naturally be a back-half swimmer, I think he also likes that strategy because he is motivated from coming from behind when folks think he can’t do it.

lane 0
Reply to  Liquid4TheGOAT
9 years ago

Yes, but he was the favorite in every individual event he swam he was the world record holder in 4 out of 5 of his individual events.

ozswim
9 years ago

This was a great article! Enjoyed it thoroughly

Robert Bernhardt
Reply to  ozswim
9 years ago

Thank you

AnotherSwimmingFan
9 years ago
Joanie
9 years ago

Jason Lezak was never the best swimmer in the world, yet he has the fastest split ever in a 100 free. There is definitely a “clutch” factor, just as in any other sport. Maybe you cannot impact what your competitor does, but standing behind the block and being in your zone or in the water when your legs are burning the last 15 meters, you can push your body beyond what any coach or commentator says.

About Robert Bernhardt

Robert, a Canadian-born native of Champaign Illinois, is a high school junior at King Henry VIII School in Coventry, England. Robert has enjoyed significant success in his swimming at the local level since the age of seven, but nothing good enough to warrant being on this site. Outside of swimming …

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