These Are the Two Biggest Differences Between Stubblety-Cook And Chupkov WRs

The swimming evolution is incredible. Zac Stubblety-Cook last week swam 2:05.95 in the men’s 200m breaststroke at the 2022 Australian Swimming Championship, setting the new World Record in the event.

The video below shows us an amazing technique and a wonderful race management.

Video courtesy of Stefano Nurra

We also have a video of the same athlete with some underwater phases when he won the gold medal in men’s 200m breaststroke at Australian Trials.

Here his technique is flawless and very relaxed. When watching the video, pay attention and do not confuse Zac Stubblety Cook with the other athlete, Matthew Wilson, who is framed most of the time.

The report below shows all the parameters of this World Record.

STUBBLETY-COOK V/S ANTON CHUPKOV

For the devotee of swimming and for the data lovers, it could be interesting to compare the great performance of Stubblety with the previous World Record set by Anton Chupkov in 2’06.12 at the 2019 FINA World Championship.

If we check the final result and the splits, we can see a tiny difference.

A deeper analysis of the data will show us something very interesting.

1. DIFFERENT MANAGEMENT OF THE RACE

We can start to observe the laps and it is possible to see the first small differences.

From the splits by 25m, we can see the first valuable difference between the two performances.

Stubblety-Cook is always faster than Chupkov in the first 25m of every 50m, but always slower in the second one.

The sum of all of the 1st and 2nd 25m splits of each 50 shows us a huge difference.

Chupkov is a bit faster in the second 100m, but he is surely faster in the second part of every 50m. In this way, we can start to understand the different management of the race of these two great athletes.

2. TURNS

Another interesting point are the turns.

We can see that Stubblety-Cook is a bit slower in every turn, but he is faster than Chupkov in every first 25m, as above stated.
A deeper analysis of the turn shows us something really interesting.

Stubblety Cook is faster than Chupkov in the first 15 meters after a turn, but absolutely slower in the last 5 meters before the wall. 1.68 sec slower in 15m is a huge gap compared to 0.82sec faster in 45m.

3. UNDERWATER PHASES

A more precise check of the underwater phases shows us that Stubblety-Cook has an underwater phase which is shorter but faster than Chupkov’s.

If you want to see the details of every underwater phase you can download the race analysis reports of both athletes.

4. SWIMMING PHASE

If we check the swimming time from 15m to 45m of every lap, we can see that Stubblety-Cook is faster than Chupkov in this phase of the race.

As regards the swimming phases, it is fascinating to note how the two swimmers are managing stroke rate and stroke length in a slightly different way. Stubblety Cook can swim a bit faster than Chupkov thanks to a bit smaller distance per stroke and a slightly faster stroke rate.

The comparison timetable of the race allows us to see something more.

We can easily see that Stubblety-Cook is slower than Chupkov in the last 5m before every turn with 1.62 sec difference, and in the last 5m of the race with 0.55 sec difference. That means a difference of 2.17 sec in just 20m, this is the point!

Conclusion

Breaking the wall of 2’06” in men’s 200m breaststroke is amazing! Zac Stubblety-Cook showed us something unbelievable.

From the data, we can see that there is room for improvement.

If this awesome athlete would like to improve any further the approach to the wall is the key factor.… We look forward to seeing you soon, Zac.

This story comes courtesy of STEFANO NURRA

  • Analyst of Turkish Swimming Federation
  • Analyst of Energy Standard​

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Joel
2 years ago

The second video is from Olympic trials in 2021 in Adelaide. First video is from 2019 WC.
Zac did not win gold in the 2018 commonwealth games. He admitted he swam poorly at that meet.

Joel
Reply to  Giusy Cisale
2 years ago

All good

Breaststroke Swimmer
2 years ago

This data can’t be correct. There is no way that Chupkov swam the final 5m of a 200m at a speed of 2.15m/s (5m / 2.33s). If he could average that speed even for a 50m race (which includes a dive start) he would go 23.26s.
It’s also extremely unlikely that he is swimming the 2nd 25m of each length faster than the 1st 25m considering he gets a push off.

Wanna Sprite?
Reply to  Breaststroke Swimmer
2 years ago

Right like 2.15 m/s was the speed peaty was doing in the endless pool for like 10 seconds

CACrushers
2 years ago

Thanks for sharing, Stefano!

About Giusy Cisale

Giusy Cisale

 GIUSY  CISALE A law graduate, and attorney for 15 years while devoting herself to running her swimming-focused blog, Scent of Chlorine. In 2015, she collaborated with Italian swimming news websites before joining SwimSwam in 2017. She loves swimming from every point of view and in 2016  became an official of the Italian …

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