Tokyo Timing: Top American Swimmers’ Olympic Schedules

2021 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

  • When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
    • Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
  • Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
  • Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
  • Full aquatics schedule
  • Initial Entries

The Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan will see the swimming finals take place in the morning with prelims happening in the evening hours. This harkens back to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing when we saw the same unconventional agenda to accommodate television broadcast schedules.

In terms of blocking out your calendar, things also get a little tricky since Tokyo’s time zone is 13 hours ahead of Eastern, just one example of how many swim fans around the world will have some type of time gap to contend with when determining when the big names will be in the pool.

To help you along, we picked out 4 of the biggest American swimming names and mapped out their schedules below with Tokyo and Eastern time zone considerations.

Three things to note, however: 1) military time is used for simplicity, 2) we are assuming these swimmers will not be racing in relay prelims and 3) we are assuming Smith, Dressel and Andrew will be members of the mixed medley relay, although we don’t know for sure at this point.

We’ll prepare a similar type schedule for the top Australian swimmers next.

Katie Ledecky

  • Saturday, July 24th: OFF
  • Sunday, July 25th:
    • 20:39 Tokyo/07:39 ET – 400m free heats
  • Monday, July 26th:
    • 11:20 Tokyo/22:20 ET Sunday – 400m free final
    • 19:02 Tokyo/06:02 ET – 200m free heats
    • 20:32 Tokyo/07:32 ET – 1500m free heats
  • Tuesday, July 27th:
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Monday – 200m free semi-finals
  • Wednesday, July 28th:
    • 10:41 Tokyo/21:41 ET Tuesday – 200m free final
    • 11:54 Tokyo/22:54 ET Tuesday – 1500m free final
  • Thursday, July 29th:
    • 12:31 Tokyo/23:31 ET Wednesday – 4x200m free relay final
    • 19:38 Tokyo/06:38 ET – 800m free heats
  • Friday, July 30th: OFF
  • Saturday, July 31st:
    • 10:46 Tokyo/17:46 ET Friday – 800m free final

Caeleb Dressel

  • Saturday, July 24th: OFF
  • Sunday, July 25th: OFF
  • Monday, July 26th:
    • 12:05 Tokyo/23:05 ET Sunday – 4x100m free relay final
  • Tuesday, July 27th
    • 19:00 Tokyo/06:00 ET – 100m free heats
  • Wednesday, July 28th
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Tuesday – 100m free semi-final
    • 12:26 Tokyo/23:26 ET Tuesday – 4x200m free relay final
  • Thursday, July 29th
    • 11:37 Tokyo/22:37 ET Wednesday – 100m free final
    • 19:50 Tokyo/06:50 ET – 100m fly heats
  • Friday, July 30th
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Thursday – 100m fly semi-final
    • 19:02 Tokyo/06:02 ET – 50m free heats
  • Saturday, July 31st
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Friday – 100m fly final
    • 11:11 Tokyo/22:11 ET Friday – 50m free semi-final
    • 11:43 Tokyo/22:43 ET Friday – mixed medley relay final
  • Sunday, August 1st
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Saturday – 50m free final
    • 11:36 Tokyo/22:36 ET Saturday – men’s medley relay final

Regan Smith

  • Saturday, July 24th: OFF
  • Sunday, July 25th:
    • 19:02 Tokyo/06:02 ET – 100m back heats
  • Monday, July 26th:
    • 11:53 Tokyo/22:53 ET Sunday – 100m back semi-final
  • Tuesday, July 27th:
    • 10:51 Tokyo/21:51 ET Monday – 100m back final
    • 19:28 Tokyo/06:28 ET – 200m fly heats
  • Wednesday, July 28th:
    • 10:57 Tokyo/21:57 ET Tuesday – 200m fly semi-final
  • Thursday, July 29th:
    • 11:28 Tokyo/22:28 ET Wednesday – 200m fly final
  • Friday, July 30th: OFF
  • Saturday, July 31st:
    • 11:43 Tokyo/22:43 ET Friday – mixed medley relay final
  • Sunday, August 1st:
    • 11:15 Tokyo/22:15 ET Saturday – women’s medley relay final

Michael Andrew

  • Saturday, July 24th:
    • 20:55 Tokyo/07:55 ET – 100m breast heats
  • Sunday, July 25th:
    • 11:33 Tokyo/22:33 ET Saturday – 100m breast semi-final
  • Monday, July 26th:
    • 11:12 Tokyo/22:12 ET Sunday – 100m breast final
  • Tuesday, July 27th: OFF
  • Wednesday, July 28th:
    • 20:15 Tokyo/07:15 ET – 200m IM heats
  • Thursday, July 29th:
    • 12:08 Tokyo/23:08 ET Wednesday – 200m IM semi-final
  • Friday, July 30th:
    • 11:16 Tokyo/22:16 ET Thursday – 200m IM final
    • 19:02 Tokyo/06:02 ET – 50m free heats
  • Saturday, July 31st:
    • 11:11 Tokyo/22:11 ET Friday – 50m free semi-final
    • 11:43 Tokyo/22:43 ET Friday – mixed medley relay final
  • Sunday, August 1st:
    • 10:30 Tokyo/21:30 ET Saturday – 50m free final
    • 11:36 Tokyo/22:36 ET Saturday – men’s medley relay final

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Irish Ringer
3 years ago

It’s a good thing for relays since Chalmers only has that one individual event. Knows he must save everything he can and try to draft off Dressel.

Chad
3 years ago

I think people are forgetting about the possibility of using Katie on the 4 x 100 free relay. I know she didn’t swim to 100 free at trials, but she was a 53.8 in season this year and is always a stud on relays. Given that her in-season swim was nearly as fast as our top 4 at trials and the relay fits in with her schedule, I wouldn’t doubt this as a possibility.

Edited due to spelling.

Last edited 3 years ago by Chad
tea rex
3 years ago

Sucks Regan missed the 200 back, but the silver lining is she’ll be ready to go if needed on the mixed medley.

SwimFam
3 years ago

SwimSwam can you post Cody Miller’s race schedule? I hear it’s brutal.

tea rex
Reply to  SwimFam
3 years ago

cold bruh

NC Fan
3 years ago

Ledecky’s 800:free final on July 31 says 10:46/17:46. 13 hours would be 21:46.

Lex Soft
3 years ago

Regan Smith, Dressel and Michael Andrew are mentioned for 4x100m mixed medley relay final. This means the relay team will be :

  1. Regan Smith
  2. Michael Andrew
  3. Caeleb Dressel
  4. Abby Weitzel/Olivia Smoliga ??

Why not :

  1. Regan Smith
  2. Ledley King
  3. Caeleb Dressel
  4. Zach Apple
Drake
Reply to  Lex Soft
3 years ago

or Murphy King Huske Dressel

Lex Soft
Reply to  Drake
3 years ago

That is my other option. But I can see Australia will go with :

  1. Kaylee McKeown – #1 seed in women backstroke. I don’t think they will put Mitch Larkin in this leg anymore.
  2. Chelsea Hodges – their weakness. They don’t have good male breaststroker to change the lineup
  3. Mathew Temple
  4. Kyle Chalmers

That’s why I still prefer putting Dressel in butterfly leg to give more advantage

Swimmer
Reply to  Lex Soft
3 years ago

I can also see the aussies keeping their 2019 lineup if all those swimmers swim well only because it gives more clean water for the back half. If they go m/h/t/c the boys are going to be hit by so much wash

Sub13
Reply to  Lex Soft
3 years ago

Probably two reasons:

1. Breast tends to have the highest time difference and Free tends to have the smallest time difference between genders, so generally you will see men doing breast and women doing free (obviously there are exceptions to this)
2. I don’t think teams like to go FFMM because they don’t want a massive deficit leading into the 3rd leg.

Lex Soft
Reply to  Sub13
3 years ago

Ok, it makes sense.
Their main rival wiil still be Australia. Based on their success at WC 2019, Australia will probably go with the same team, except Mathew Wilson will be replaced by Zac Cook.
Can you give detailed analysis on this race between USA vs Australia ?

Who gets it? Adrian gets it
3 years ago

This is the coldest take of all time. Zero honor in Chalmers race strategy.

Sub13
Reply to  Who gets it? Adrian gets it
3 years ago

How does one have a “dishonourable” race strategy? Lol

Sharkspeed
Reply to  Sub13
3 years ago

You should read the comments about MA’s 200im.

Sub13
Reply to  Sharkspeed
3 years ago

I know people don’t like MA’s “fly and die” but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone call it “dishonourable”. Like, how can you even be dishonourable while swimming?

Lex Soft
Reply to  Who gets it? Adrian gets it
3 years ago

Your account name… that’s when Adrian beat James Magnussen in 100m free at London 2012, right ?

Mustangswimdad
3 years ago

Michael Andrew has trained fast to swim during prelims. So having the finals in the morning might actually be advantageous for him.

Sub13
Reply to  Mustangswimdad
3 years ago

Swimming at your natural evening is a massive advantage. Good for Americans that they bought the rights to set the schedule so will always have that advantage.

Joel
Reply to  Sub13
3 years ago

It’s crap

sggs
Reply to  Sub13
3 years ago

i know people that swim faster in the morning and some that swim faster at night, i dont think there is something inherently favourable about either time besides personal preference

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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