From the Research Files: Trends in Women’s World Rankings, 2011-2016

From the Files of Robin Pla*

After analyzing trends in men’s world rankings over the last six years, we now turn our attention to the trends in women’s world rankings from 2011 to 2016, as researched by Robin Pla*.

Pla has compiled lists of the top 100 swimmers in the world as at December 31st of each year. He looks at each pool swimming event, from the 50s of each stroke up to the 1500 free. The first thing we notice in the women’s data table is the enormous outlier represented by the United States. American women have dominated the 17 top-100 lists during this time period. While the numbers have fluctuated between 317 and 365, the U.S. has averaged 341 top-100 swims per year, representing just over 20% of the worldwide total.

Next we notice the decline (by 50%) of China, and the less drastic reductions of Japan and Australia. In ascendance, Italy has nearly doubled the number of top-100 rankings, as has Hungary. Canada, the UK, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, and France have had up and down years, but their trend lines have remained somewhat constant.

Number of Women Ranked Among the Top 100 Worldwide in All 17 LCM Events

Next we look at where each country’s relative strength lies. Among the top 100 swimmers in the world for the 17 World Championship events combined, here is the percentage of athletes from each who finished in the top 20 for the year. Some of the smaller contingents, such as Denmark, Hungary, Sweden, and Australia, packed big punches:

Percentage of Top-100 Women Ranked Among the Top 20 Worldwide in All 17 LCM Events

With specific reference to 2016, it is interesting to note how freestyle-heavy Italy, Australia, Brazil, France and Netherlands are. Japan is perhaps the most evenly-distributed, but the Japanese women have been particularly strong in breast and fly.

Number of Women Ranked Among the Top 100 Worldwide in 2016, per Stroke

As with the men’s rankings, European and Asian women tend to lead the rankings in the shorter distances, while USA is the undisputed leader in 200s and above. That said, Italy has had a surprising number of big performances in the over-400m range; more than double their sprints. Spain’s numbers are even more striking, with nearly 3 times more distance top-100s than 50s. The strongest performances in 200s have come from the U.S., Australia, UK, Japan, China, Canada, and Hungary.

Number of Women Ranked Among the Top 100 Worldwide in 2016, per Distance

*Robin Pla (@RobiinRoad) is National Technical Consultant for the Ministry of Sports, attached to the French Swimming Federation. He is scientific consultant to the French national teams. He is also assistant coach for the National group at INSEP in Paris. Pla holds a Master in Sports, Expertise and Elite Performance and a Master in Sports Management. He is currently working on his doctorate on the distribution of intensity in training.