What Are The Most Likely World Records To Be Broken In Paris? (Women’s Edition)

How excited are you for the Olympics? There are only six days left and I honestly am already mentally in Paris.

It may be the heat getting to my head, it may be my head giving up and just can’t take it anymore with numbers and math, but the same math has been knocking on my temporal lobe and whispering to me, “If you really don’t want to study me, then use me for that stuff, for swimming.”

So I’m asking again, how excited are you for the Olympics from 1 to “”I calculated the probability of breaking world records in each event?”

For each event, we calculated the relative difference between the current world record and the season’s best performance.

(The smaller the difference, the higher the probability that this difference will be canceled and a new record will be set at the Olympics).

• Read here men’s edition

GIRLS JUST WANNA…SWIM FAST

The women’s competition field is very different from its male counterpart. While we had only a few events under 1 percent of relative difference, here there are nine out of fourteen events that reflect this. We are only talking about numbers, but what is certain is this year the girls are on fire. Most of the world records of the main events we will talk about were set at the latest a year ago. Not to mention records swum only a few months or a few weeks ago at the various National Olympic Trials.
Another peculiarity of women’s races is that often the best performance of the year, or the second best if the record was set in the current year, belongs to the same world record holder. There are more cases in which it seems that the only lady capable of breaking the record is the same who has previously established it, but in the recent past, which suggests that these have all the makings to outdo themselves again.
In other cases, however, the athletes in the best conditions are two, and indeed, it will happen more than once that we will be lucky enough to witness competitions in which the two best ever performers in the specialty will be present.
In those moments then we will have the privilege of being the spectators of those duels that are not only worth an Olympic gold medal, but also the name of the fastest swimmer ever.

WOMEN’S 400m FREE

• World Record – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 3:55.38 (2023)
• Fastest This Season – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 3:55.44
• Top Seed – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 3:55.38 (2023)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.03%

The only three swimmers to have fallen below Federica Pellegrini‘s former world record of 3:59.15 are Katie Ledecky, Ariarne Titmus and once again Summer McIntosh. But no that’s all, this trio is also the only representation of performances that go well beyond 3:59, because all of them have personal bests under the 3:56.5 bar.

Australian Ariarne Titmus comes in as the big favorite in the women’s 400 free, but also to break her own record signed last year. In fact, the 24-year-old came sensationally close to her current world record of 3:55.38 during the Australian Olympic qualifiers last month, swimming 3:55.44. This is the second all-time performance that marks her as the only woman who can swim under 3:56 the eight Olympic laps. The consistency factor is also on her side: Titmus has swum under 3:57 five times since 2021.
At the Australian Trials, the athlete from Launceston (the same state as Taz from Looney Toones) swam slightly differently than she did for the previous year’s record.

At Fukuoka Worlds Titmus swam a “much” slower first part of the race than at the Trials, even going over the 60-second mark in the second 100, in favor, however, of a fabulous 58.48 finish. During the trials, on the other hand, the strategy was almost backwards: a start with a half-second faster 100 and a balanced middle part, at the expense of closing almost a second slower than the world record.

What strategy will the Australian apply?

The only other swimmer who can currently expect to break the record is Summer McIntosh. I exclude American Katie Ledecky as she has not swum a time less than 3:58 since 2021, and less than 3:57 since her then world record time in 2016.

The Canadian, on the other hand, is entered in Paris with her then-briefly-fastest time in history of 3:56.08, achieved in March 2023. During this year’s Trials, the 17-year-old only achieved a time of 3:59.06, but an important factor is due to the peace of mind the girl could have in May, still the world record holder, already qualified and with no reference among her lane neighbors (the second touched the wall 9 seconds later).

Thus, considering Summer McIntosh‘s age- when she was born Michael Phelps had already won six Olympic gold medals- and her performance, the third fastest ever, dating back only a year, the conditions for her to establish herself along with Titmus in the history of this event, if that were not yet enough, are very much there. Recall that in the 400 medley, the teenage all-rounder lowered her personal best by a second and a half from 2023 to 2024.

This will also be the first race on the schedule for both athletes, and that is a very promising data . Get your popcorns ready everyone, I predict a double world record in the 400 style, men+women combo. Let’s Get it started.

WOMEN’S 200m BACK

• World Record – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 2:03.14 (2023)
• Fastest This Season – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 2:03.30
• Top Seed – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 2:03.14 (2023)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.13%

Kaylee McKeown could become the new world record holder in three different specialties during these Games. In the 200 backstroke, the Australian is the favorite for gold, followed by Regan Smith, and together they form the only pair of swimmers capable of swimming under 2:04 this season.

This Australia-US duel will be renewed in the 100 backstroke, where again the record has bounced between the two rivals several times in past years.

The race for the most valuable medal therefore seems to be one-way, as well as the one for the world record.

Just think that together the two athletes boast 19 out of 25 of the fastest times ever swum: the score is on 12 to 7 in favor of the Australian.

Despite this, however, Regan Smith recently set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke, moving from her former world record (already broken by McKeown) of 57.57, recorded in 2019, to the new one of 57.13. If the 22-year-old -take a minute to remember that Regan Smith and Kaylee McKeown were only born in 2002 and 2001- can maintain the same speed as five years ago in the 100 back, with a better 100 back, she could expect to steal the record from the Australian again.

Analyzing the top four all-time swims of the two opponents shows that Kaylee McKeown‘s are all from this season or last year; Regan Smith, on the other hand, has not gone below 2:03.8 since 2019. This might suggest a point against the American, except that Smith seems to be in the same shape she arrived with in her record-breaking year.

Indeed, it may be interesting to note that Regan Smith set world records in the 100 and 200 backstroke in the same season, even during the same event, in July 2019. The current 100 backstroke record was swum by the American herself a month ago: could history repeat itself?

WOMEN’S 200m FREE

• World Record – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 1:52.23 (2024)
• Fastest This Season – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 1:52.23
• Second Fastest This Season – Mollie O’Callaghan, AUS – 1:52.48
• Top Seed – Ariarne Titmus, AUS – 1:52.23 (2024)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.22%

Another world record was set just a month ago. One of the most exciting duels of these Olympics promises to be in the 200 free, and not just for gold and Olympic glory, possibly also to become (or confrim as) the fastest female swimmers ever.

Australia’s Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan seem to be the only two with what it takes to be able to win and aim for another world record. Although it is hard for what happened during the Australian Trials to happen again, the two will again try to put on a show given their extraordinary form.

Ariarne Titmus demolished the world record set by fellow O’Callaghan with 1:52.23, surpassing it by more than half a second. What is peculiar is that O’Callaghan herself also broke her own record by almost 0,4 in that race.

During the Trials the former record holder implemented a different strategy than usual, swimming the first 100 meters significantly faster than world record times. This may have been due to her closeness to Ariarne Titmus, who also swam very similar, if not faster, subjects, which perhaps caused Mollie O’Callaghan to screw up her prediction. The tactic was successful, however, and the record was broken by her as well, but we are curious if by finding a balance between a race made on her own sensations and one made on rival Titmus, the record might come into her hands again.

Another argue in favor of Titmus is the Olympic title she won three years ago, which gives her confidence, if the regained world record was not enough already, about a race that in the past year has rekindled the hearts of fans, that stopped beating after Federica Pellegrini‘s swim in Rome 2009.
Almost like a card game, will Titmus be able to hold on to the record or improve on it again, or will O’Callaghan take back the loot?

WOMEN’S 50m FREE

• World Record – Sarah Sjostrom, SWE – 23.61 (2023)
• Fastest This Season – Sarah Sjostrom, SWE – 23.69
• Top Seed – Sarah Sjostrom, SWE – 23.61 (2023)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.30%

Let’s get straight to the point: the only swimmer who can break this record has a specific first and last name, her name is Sara Curt-sorry, I jumped ahead in time a few years and got confused-her name is Sarah Sjostrom.

The Sweden owns eight of the best 10 performances ever in this race. Sjostrom is the undisputed queen of sprint, who seems to have been reborn, though she didn’t need it, even stronger after the accident in which she fractured her elbow.

With the retirement of Pernille Plume in fact, the 30-year-old remains the only active swimmer on this list. From 2017 to the present, the Sweden has swum under 23.8 eight times, a milestone that in itself is incredible if achieved once, imagine eight times.

The reason we choose to include this event in the ranking, however, is first and foremost mathematical: Sarah achieved a new world record only last year in Fukuoka, but she got incredibly close with her season-best time of 23.69 swum at the next World Championships in Qatar in 2024.

Seven years after the first record set Sarah Sjostrom, now 30, has shown that she is able to swim incredible performances. Her best three performances, excluding the former world record, were all achieved between last year and this year.

Adding to the numerical facts is the Swedish woman’s stated determination and ambition for this race, when she had even considered giving up the 100 free in favor of this event. Sarah has repeatedly stated that it is not a medal she is after, so much as a meaningful victory.

Does she have, perhaps, any surprises in store for us yet?

WOMEN’S 100m BACK

• World Record – Regan Smith, USA – 57.13 (2024)
• Fastest This Season – Regan Smith, USA – 57.13
• Second Fastest This Season – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 57.33
• Top Seed – Regan Smith, USA – 57.13 (2024)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.35%

Welcome back to the “Regan Smith & Kaylee McKeown Show.”

The women’s 100 backstroke world record, in addition to being the most recent, set on June 18, 2024, is also the one with the smallest time margin with the previous one. The former record in fact corresponds to 57.33, as well as to the second fastest performance of the season swum by Kaylee McKeown last October.

What is also special about the 100 backstroke is that it has “two finals” at its disposition. In fact, in 2019, when Regan Smith broke the 58-second mark for the first time in history, we were not watching the final of the 100 individual backstroke, for which she was not even selected. It was the U.S. women’s 4×100 mixed relay, led by the very swimmer who was born in 2002.

The busy schedule of the two athletes, however, with the 200 backstroke together, Kaylee’s 200 medley and Regan’s 200 butterfly, suggests that if we are going to see one more record, it will be in the individual finals, the first competition for both of them. In fact, the schedule will not play in their favor if they want to rely on the second chance to swim the record in the relay, as it’s scheduled for August 3.

Although McKeown boasts more consistency in swimming times under 58 seconds since 2021, Smith, who had somewhat lost that habit after her magical year in 2019, has hardly touched the wall in more than 58 seconds in the past few months since the start of 2024.

Best performances from October 2023 to June 2024

Besides being the world record holder then, Regan Smith seems to be in even better shape than the Australian. Let’s be clear, we are talking about a very high level, and it is silly to think that a swimmer who only nine months ago went 57.33 would be “not in shape,” especially if that already represented a world record. In competitions like these, the numbers certainly help, and watching the progression of times swum by Smith over the past few months has allowed us not to be taken by surprise infront of the new world record, but at the Olympics you cannot rely on them alone.

Another factor to consider is that Regan Smith had to beat an athlete of Katharine Berkoff‘s magnitude to win the U.S. Trials. Berkoff entered with the third fastest time of 57.83, not that far behind the other two. Kaylee McKeown, on the other hand, had to beat teammate Iona Anderson who swam 58.43, a time that allows her to be the fifth seed in Paris, but did not constitute much of a threat to the former world record holder.

Will we get to see the 56-second mark get closer and closer?

WOMEN’S 200m IM

• World Record – Katinka Hosszu, HUN – 2:06.12 (2015)
• Fastest This Season – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 2:06.63
• Top Seed – Kaylee McKeown, AUS – 2:06.63 (2024)
• RELATIVE DIFFERENCE (WR/Fastest This Season) = 0.40%

This is the only event of those in-depth events whose world record does not date from the current or past season. The 200 medley record still belongs to Iron Lady Katinka Hosszu, who swam the four laps in 2015 in Kazan in 2:06.12. Putting aside the 2:06.15 from Ariana Kukors‘ former record in 2009, as it was swum in superswimsuits, no one else had come close to this time, other than Katinka herself, from 2016 to the present.

In fact, 2023/2024 has seen as many as three female swimmers fall below 2:07: Summer McIntosh, Kate Douglass, and Kaylee McKeown.

Currently the best seasonal and entry time is Kaylee McKeown who swam the closest time to the Hungarian since 2016 with 2:06.63 during the Australian Olympic Trials last month. The 23-year-old has a very similar race strategy to the Iron Lady, with whom she shares the love of backstroke. With a few adjustments here and there she could therefore be able to replicate Hosszu’s performance. To her downside is the fact that the Australian has never competed this race in a top-level competition, between disqualifications and schedule conflicts. However it is also true that the two golds in Paris show that when the game gets tough, McKeown certainly does not give up.

Not far behind with a time of 2:06.79 is Kate Douglass. The American is not the girl I would bet on as the new world record holder (just on my own discretion), yet there are several factors that can be used against me. Looking at her fractions, Douglass is the only one to have such a fast fly-breast combo. In contrast, her 50 back is very slow compared to the others, and it is not offset by the closing freestyle . .The American, however, also comes in as the first seed in the women’s 200 breaststroke. On paper, the advantage gained in the breast split so far does not make up for the seconds lost on McKeown in on the back, but the hope is that the Olympic event may have prepared her for a split that gives her a few more meters of advantage.

Summer McIntosh is the third swimmer with an entry time under 2:07, achieved at last year’s World Championships in Fukuoka.

In analyzing the 17-year-old’s chances of breaking the longest-running world record in this selection, we will use both the season’s best time and the entry time.

The second is taken into account because the Canadian is extremely young. A girl who achieves 2:06.89 at only 16 years of age suggests that the limit is far from broken. Even more so if she sets another world record on the double distance at 17.

The season’s personal best, however, is equivalent to 2:07.06 and is the onewe’re using for comparison, as it was achieved during the Canadian Trials, which simulated the schedule in Paris. That 0,17 difference then can be attributed to the fact that in Fukuoka the schedule favored the 200 , placing it earlier in the program than the 400.

Despite this, looking at Summer’s weakest fraction, the breaststroke, we can observe a half-second improvement from one race to the next, albeit at the expense of a slightly slower butterfly and finish. Another interesting factor is that the first 50 breast in the 400 IM event that was worth the world record, was swam in 37.92, (the second 39.21), faster therefore than the corresponding split in the 200 meter IM at the same Trials. This, while an encouraging sign, once again shows how accumulated fatigue can take its toll. McIntosh will have already swum at least 2,200 meters individually, not counting her potential relay duties.

THE 400-METER IM CASE
The criterion for computing these percentages was the best or second best performance of the year. In the case of the women’s 400 IM, the fastest time of the year comes from Canadian Trials in May with Summer McIntosh setting the new world record. In order to perform a more heterogeneous analysis, we calculated the percentage difference with the second fastest of the year, namely Kaylee McKeown, who, however, is four seconds behind the Canadian, making this event last in our ranking.

However, although it is not a given that if a record has been set recently, the same will be broken again at the Olympics, it is clear that the 17-year-old’s performance raises expectations and odds by no small margin.

One plus point is that although McIntosh’s schedule is full of challenging races, the 400 medley will be just her second individual race, scheduled for July 29. This will be a change from past World Championships in 2022 and 2023, where she added more than a second in this race due to accumulated fatigue.

CATEGORY: ‘IF THESE RECORDS GET BROKEN I WILL DIVE INTO THE SEINE’

• WOMEN’S 800 FREE: if in the corresponding men’s event the record for this event is almost impossible to beat, because of the help provided by the 2009 supers-suit, in this case the only problem is Katie Ledecky‘s alien provenance. The record of 8:04.79 is unreachable for all athletes competing in the Olympics, except Ledecky herself, who, however, has a personal best season time of 8:12.95, far from that performance. Last year the American swam a time of 8:07, only three seconds slower than the record. Perhaps with the best seasonal performer over the distance, 17-year-old Summer McIntosh would we have a Ledecky pushed to break that mark again? We will never know, but that to me remains one of the hardest times to break, even for the alien Katie Ledecky.
• WOMEN’S 1500 FREE: However, if the 800 is a tough field, the 1500 record is science fiction. The 19 fastest performances ever are all by Katie Ledecky ,but the most recent, dating back to last year’s World Championships in Fukuoka, is 6 seconds slower than her world record (15:26.27). This time is not even that far off proportionally from that 15:20.48, but it is also not as easy as it looks. Of those 19 by the way, only six date back to 2023 or 2024. Never say never, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
• My only certainty in life is that Liu Zige‘s 200m FLY (2:01.81) will not be broken. The best performance of the year is set by Summer McIntosh, with 2:04.33, a full three seconds slower than the record. What is frightening about this time, however, is that the second all-time performance is more than two seconds slower, and that not even Liu Zige herself has ever again been able to approach the 2:02 mark. If anyone goes faster than Zige in 2009 you will find me in Lourdes .

MOST LIKELY RECORDS TO BE BROKEN

Percentages refer to the relative difference between the current world record and the best performance of the season

F.A.Q.

1. Why didn’t you mention the other podium contenders?
   • The goal of the article is not to decree the likely winner of the event, which is why Olympic previews exist, but rather to analyze who has the potential to break the world record.
2. Why are some events such as the 400 medley relay in last place when it is not unlikely that a record will be broken?
   • The criterion for choosing the events is mathematical, and based on comparing the current record with the best seasonal performance, in case they match the second performance of the season was observed, so that we could observe whether there are other contenders as well.
   • The criterion was applied equally for all events as a leading indicator. Math is not law. Well sometimes it is, but it’s not the case (Inner sofi-physicist stop it)
3. “Tizia Caia achieved a faster time in Fukuoka, or in 2023” Why don’t you use that time?
   • The best seasonal time (September 2023-hours), not entry time (March 2023-June 2024), was chosen for the second term of comparison. This was preferred as it was more reliable in assessing the athletes’ condition.
     The greater the likelihood of a record being broken, the more in-depth that event was included in the analysis, including performances prior to the seasonal (but qualifying) window.