The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games will hold their preliminary swimming heats at 1:00 in the afternoon, per ESPN, in order to better accommodate the meet’s late-night finals time slot.
Finals in Rio will begin at 10 p.m. local time, a unique schedule within the sport of swimming implemented to broadcast the medal races live in prime-time within the United States.
As many fans and swimmers have suggested, the morning heats will also be moved later in the day, taking place at 1 p.m. to ensure a full night’s sleep for athletes competing on consecutive days.
That time slot has been criticized on several angles. An open letter to the IOC recently alleged that the 10 p.m. slot would give American athletes a competitive advantage over swimmers from Europe, Asia or Australia.
Australian coach Jacco Verhaeren called it an “irresponsible decision” in the ESPN piece, which you can read here.
There have also been concerns that swimmers could wind up without food options in the athlete village if the finals session and post-session drug testing keeps them out into the early -morning hours.
ESPN reports that swimmers will be given the top floors of the buildings in the athlete village so that they can sleep soundly as other athletes are coming in and out during their own competitions.
Several other sports are in a similar scheduling predicament – ESPN says volleyball, beach volleyball and basketball will also have late-night competitions to fit the TV schedule.
good luck for the swimmers to sleep well in the village with the noice of the other competitors living normaly
You can blame NBC for this just as much as you can blame Nike for USATF problems.
Ugh, count me in with those who find this idea appalling. As a light sleeper myself, I can’t imagine this! I suppose to some extent, the night finals will be just like adapting to a new timezone, which (most) athletes have to do anyway when traveling to an international meet, and maybe this is how organizers justify this. Where this is different, however, is that the athletes will be fighting against the sun. Athletes will have to sleep in while the sun is up, basically the equivalent of going on night shift, which is different, I think, than just adapting to a time zone shift.
I get wanting to move session times to usual local times. Makes things easier.
But the whole “Americans have an advantage!” thing is ridiculous.
It looks inevitable the morning finals in Beijing will happen again for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
This really is nothing new. Finals in Beijing were moved to the morning so they could be aired live on prime time in the USA.
Same for Seoul in 1988.
IOC is getting more and more focus on the money and the commercial side of the sport, and shifting away from what actually matters; Atletes giving away a shining performance after 4 years of hard labour and dedication for a hobby/sport they are passionate about.
The open letter is just trolling. It’s shameless promotion for Steve and his “Alliance”.