In elite sport, breakthroughs don’t come easy. Margins are small, competition is fierce, and change is often met with resistance. But every so often, something shifts. A new way of thinking – backed by undeniable results – cracks open a well-worn system. For swimming, that moment is now.
The eo SwimBETTER documentary – Swimming’s Moneyball – released this month, captures a quiet revolution that’s gaining pace in pools around the world. It tells the story not just of a piece of technology, but of a movement – one that’s pushing athletes and coaches to rethink how they train, how they measure progress, and how they close the gap between potential and performance.
“I remember looking at myself in the mirror before my race,” recalls Paige Madden, “knowing that I had done everything I possibly could.” That race – the women’s 800m freestyle in Paris – saw Madden take home a bronze medal and cut an astonishing 19 seconds from her previous best. A key part of that journey? The eo SwimBETTER handsets, which provided her with detailed technique feedback in real time. “For an athlete who’s already an Olympic medallist,” says eo’s Principal Scientist, Dr Kenneth Graham, “improving by two seconds per 100 metres using the handsets is pretty ridiculous.”
That kind of improvement doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of bringing high-resolution data into the hands of swimmers and coaches – literally. The eo SwimBETTER palm-sized handsets capture force production, stroke path, hand velocity, and angle of attack, among other metrics. More importantly, they translate those data points into clear, actionable insights.
“In the past, you’d make a technical change and then wait weeks to see if it had any effect,” says Todd DeSorbo, head coach of the U.S. women’s team. “Now, we can see it instantly. The feedback is right there. You can see how a small tweak affects efficiency, propulsion, and ultimately, speed.”
That mindset is shared by Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers. “Technique is a crucial focus for me,” he says, “and using the technology gives you something more to think about in the pool – which is very important.”
Efficiency has long been the holy grail of swimming. But up until now, it’s been more art than science. Coaches relied on trained eyes, underwater cameras, and feel – valuable tools, but ones that couldn’t always catch what the numbers now make obvious.
“What eo SwimBETTER does is give coaches and their swimmers proof,” says eo’s Chairman, Jaimie Fuller. “You see the charts. You see where the power’s going. You see where it’s being wasted. And most importantly, you see how to fix it.”
That objective clarity has won over NSW Swimming High Performance Coach Sander Ganzevles. “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got. As a coach, I want to get better. I want to improve. So we need to find new pathways to help us get better instead of repeating ourselves. We need to embrace the new technology, embrace new findings and learn from them – and then act on it”
The documentary also explores the deeper story behind the tech. Viewers are introduced to eo’s engineering team, including Neil Baker, eo SwimBETTER’s Product Head and physicist-turned-innovator who helped turn a radical idea into a viable product. “I used to be a competitive swimmer,” he explains “so I had a good feel for what kind of feedback actually matters. The goal wasn’t to create data for data’s sake – it was to give swimmers the exact insights they need to improve.”
eo – derived from the Latin for progress – has stayed true to its name. What began as an experiment is now influencing how elite swimmers train for the biggest stages in the sport. Coaches are uncovering inefficiencies, comparing race simulations, and individualising technique at a level never seen before.
In one particularly striking example, Paige Madden was asked to swim against Division I male distance swimmers wearing fins – a simulation designed to stress-test her race plan. “She thought she was going faster,” recalls Dr Ken Ono, Marvin Rosenblum Professor of Science at the University of Virginia. “And for a brief moment, she was. But the data showed her stroke was breaking down. We used that insight to rebuild it. And the result? A 19-second drop.”
It’s a far cry from the old days of watching video and guessing. As DeSorbo notes, “It’s trial and error, but now we have the numbers to guide the trial.”
There’s still room to grow. “We’re probably only showing 40% of the data we currently capture,” Baker says. “We’re developing new visualisations, new layers, new AI-driven features that will make this feel like a virtual coach. We’re just getting started.”
As the sport looks ahead to LA 2028, many believe that data will play the same disruptive role that Speedo’s LZR suits did in the late 2000s – only this time, it’s built on transparency and skill, not passive advantage. “Swim tech is the next big moment in swimming,” says eo’s CEO Dean Hawkins. “And this time, it’s here to stay.”
The documentary’s title – Swimming’s Moneyball – is no accident. Much like the baseball revolution that inspired it, this is about rethinking how success is measured and achieved. Where instinct and tradition once dominated, data is now driving decision-making – not to replace coaching intuition, but to sharpen it.
Watch the documentary Swimming’s Moneyball:
Find out more about eo SwimBETTER at get.eolab.com or follow them on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn @eosportslab.
eo is a SwimSwam partner.
