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≡ PARIS 2024 ≡
A few days after the Paris Olympic Games closed, an exclusive TSX statistical analysis explored the dip in performance by the U.S. Olympic swimming team, in which American swimmers bettered their Olympic Trials final performances just 30.4% of the time.
In fact, the American performance “batting average” at the Games, compared to the Trials, took a major nosedive in Paris compared to Rio and Tokyo:
● .577 at Rio 2016 (30 better out of 52)
● .518 at Tokyo 2020 (29 better out of 56)
● .304 at Paris 2024 (17 better out of 56)
Australia’s swimmers did even worse; comparing the last round reached of their Olympic swims compared to their Trials, the Dolphins “batting average” was just .255 from 12.5 out of 49.
As it turns out, they were alone. In fact, Australia turned out to be about average and the U.S. – which won 28 swimming medals in Paris – turned out to be a little above average.
But no one was doing great.
World Aquatics released a series of results reviews from Paris, and the swimming document included a lively series of statistics, with perhaps the most insightful way back on page 33.
That’s where a table illustrated the percentage of swimmers who improved their entry times during any round of the 28 individual events at the 2024 Olympic Games.
It was 231 out of 939, or 24.6%. Yuk.
You won’t find those numbers, because the columns weren’t added up, but TSX did the math and it is not impressive:
Men by event group:
● 6 Freestyle: 73 of 276 swimmers were better (26.4%)
● 2 Backstroke: 12 of 76 (15.8%)
● 2 Breaststroke: 9 of 61 (14.8%)
● 2 Butterfly: 19 of 68 (27.9%)
● 2 Medley: 8 of 41 (19.5%)
● Men’s total: 121 of 522 (23.2%)
Women by event group:
● 6 Freestyle: 62 of 193 swimmers were better (32.1%)
● 2 Backstroke: 18 of 63 (28.6%)
● 2 Breaststroke: 8 of 60 (13.3%)
● 2 Butterfly: 14 of 51 (27.5%)
● 2 Medley: 8 of 50 (16.0%)
● Women’s total: 110 of 417 (26.4%)
The women were better in Freestyle and Backstroke and the men were better, on a percentage basis, in the other strokes.
But this is not very good: less than a quarter of all swimmers improved on their entry times at the Olympic Games, where performance should be best? In the women’s 400 m Medley, the table showed just one performer out of 16 in the whole field was better than their entry times (6.25%).
There will be reminders of the shallow depth of the pool at the La Defense Arena, but there were almost a quarter of the swimmers who did do better, so it didn’t impact everyone.
These are interesting numbers and opens the door to questions about similar studies of Rio and Tokyo Olympic swimming and at the recent World Aquatics Championships to see if this is an aberration or a start of a trend.
But it’s not good. The Olympic Games is supposed to be the pinnacle of an athlete’s performance career. For the 939 entries in Paris, less than a quarter found it to be so.
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