It’s been nearly two weeks for the reason that swimming competitions wrapped up on the Paris 2024 Olympics, with the closing ceremony happening on August 12.
This 12 months’s video games sparked a whole lot of buzz, partly because of the questionable depth of the pool on the Protection Area, the place world information have been gradual to fall. Seen waves extra outstanding than regular in swimming pools of this stature led spectators questioning in the event that they is likely to be contributing to slower instances.
It bought me considering: are there any “gradual” swimming pools the place world information have nonetheless been set? And the way deep are the swimming pools the place present information have been made?
Under, I’ve put collectively an inventory of present information, together with the depth of the swimming pools they have been set in. Like we’ve talked about earlier than, most Olympic swimming pools are round 3 meters deep, and a lot of the present world information have been set in swimming pools like that. There’s a little bit of a suggestions bias right here – most large meets select deeper swimming pools for competitors, and massive meets are the place essentially the most World Information are set. I nonetheless assume it’s attention-grabbing to assessment.
ARE THERE WORLD RECORDS SET IN SHALLOW POOLS?
Completely. Other than the 4 world information set in the course of the Paris Olympics, there are three different information made in swimming pools with depths of lower than 3 meters. One among these is the lads’s 50m freestyle world file, which, whereas set with an excellent go well with, was made by Cesar Cielo in his dwelling pool on the Pinheiros Membership in São Paulo. That pool’s depth ranges from 2.10m to 2.30m.
If we omit super-suited information, two stand out: Sarah Sjostrom’s 50m butterfly and Ariarne Titmus’s 200m freestyle.
One idea floated round by an Ivy League-educated Olympic gold medalist is that water depth is much less vital in everlasting swimming pools than in shallow swimming pools, due to much less cavitation of the physique of the construction creating much less waves.
Sjöstrom set her file 10 years in the past in the course of the Swedish Nationwide Championships on July 5, 2014, in Borås on the Borås Simarena, which has a depth of solely 2 meters. This file can also be the longest-standing (excluding Liu Zige’s “unbeatable” 200m butterfly) amongst girls’s information.
Extra lately, Ariarne Titmus set a brand new 200m freestyle file only a month and a half earlier than the Paris Video games. On July 12, 2024, in the course of the Australian Olympic Trials in Brisbane, Titmus clocked in at 1:52.23, beating the file her teammate Mollie O’Callaghan had set on the Fukuoka World Championships in 2023. This file got here from the Queensland Aquatic Centre on the Sleeman Sport Complicated, which additionally has a depth of two meters.
Curiously, on this similar Brisbane pool in the course of the June Trials, Kaylee McKeown (who holds the world file within the girls’s 200m backstroke) swam the second-fastest time ever, simply 0.16 seconds off her file of two:03.14.
These examples present us that pool depth isn’t every part with regards to breaking information. A file that’s lasted a decade was set in a 2-meter deep pool, simply as a file set weeks earlier than the Paris Video games was made in a pool shallower than the one in Paris.
SO, WAS THIS THE SLOWEST OLYMPICS EVER?
Not likely. Olympic and world information from previous Video games, the variety of information set in Paris isn’t all that completely different from Rio 2016. Paris noticed 4 world information, whereas Tokyo 2021 had six, however have in mind solely three years have handed since then.
After we take into account each Olympic and world information, Paris noticed 21 new information throughout 20 occasions. Tokyo had 21 information throughout 33 occasions, whereas Rio had 23 information throughout simply 12 occasions.
OLYMPIC AND WORLD RECORDS SET AT RECENT GAMES:
Paris 2024: 21 information (20 occasions), 4 WR
Tokyo 2021: 33 information (21 occasions), 6 WR
Rio 2016: 23 information (12 occasions), 8 WR (7 occasions)
Curiously, essentially the most “disappointing” performances appeared to occur in the course of the early finals, just like the podium for the 100m breaststroke, which passed off on day two. In the meantime, one of the best performances, together with world information, got here within the last days, similar to Pan Zhanle‘s file on day 5 or the ladies’s medley relay on day 8.
I’ll go away these ideas right here for now, ready for extra solutions—lots of which have already come from the Olympic champions pushing boundaries as soon as once more.
LIST OF RECORDS WITH POOL DEPTHS
WOMEN’S WORLD RECORD
Occasion
SWIMMER
TIME
LOCATION
DEPTH
DATE
50m freestyle
Sarah Sjostrom
23.61
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
29 July 2023
100m freestyle
Sarah Sjostrom
51.71
Budapest, Hungary
3m
23 July 2017
200m freestyle
Ariarne Titmus
1:52.23
Brisbane, Australia
2m
12 June 2024
400m freestyle
Ariarne Titmus
3:55.38
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
23 July 2023
800m freestyle
Katie Ledecky
8:04.79
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3m
12 August 2016
1500m freestyle
Katie Ledecky
15:20.48
Indianapolis, United States
3m
16 Might 2018
50m backstroke
Kaylee McKeown
26.86
Budapest, Hungary
3m
20 October 2023
100m backstroke
Regan Smith
57.13
Indianapolis, United States
3m
18 June 2024
200m backstroke
Kaylee McKeown
2:03.14
Sydney, Australia
3m
10 March 2023
50m breaststroke
Ruta Meilutyte
29.16
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
30 July 2023
100m breaststroke
Lilly King
1:04.13
Budapest, Hungary
3m
25 July 2017
200m breaststroke
Evgeniia Chikunova
2:17.55
Kazan, Russia
3m
21 April 2023
50m butterfly
Sarah Sjostrom
24.43
Borås, Sweden
2m
5 July 2014
100m butterfly
Gretchen Walsh
55.18
Indianapolis, United States
3m
15 June 2024
200m butterfly
Liu Zige
2:01.81
Jinan, China
supersuit, pool’s depth unknown
21 October 2009
200m particular person medley
Katinka Hosszu
2:06.12
Kazan, Russia
3m
3 August 2015
400m particular person medley
Summer season McIntosh
4:24.38
Toronto, Canada
3m
16 Might 2024
4 × 100 m freestyle relay
Australia
3:27.96
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
23 July 2023
4 x 200 m freestyle relay
Australia
7:37.50
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
27 July 2023
4 x 100 m medley relay
United States
3:49.63
Paris, France
2.15m
4 August 2024
MEN’S WORLD RECORD
Occasion
SWIMMER
TIME
LOCATION
DEPTH
DATE
50m freestyle
Cesar Cielo
20.91
São Paulo, Brazil
supersuit, 2.10-2.30m
18 December 2009
100m freestyle
Pan Zhanle
46.40
Paris, France
2.15m
31 July 2024
200m freestyle
Paul Biedermann
1:42.00
Rome, Italy
supersuit, 3m
28 July 2009
400m freestyle
Paul Biedermann
3:40.07
Rome, Italy
supersuit, 3m
26 July 2009
800m freestyle
Zhang Lin
7:32.12
Rome, Italy
supersuit, 3m
29 July 2009
1500m freestyle
Bobby Finke
14:30.67
Paris, France
2.15m
4 August 2024
50m backstroke
Kliment Kolesnikov
23.55
Kazan, Russia
3m
27 July 2023
100m backstroke
Thomas Ceccon
51.60
Budapest, Hungary
3m
20 June 2022
200m backstroke
Aaron Peirsol
1:51.92
Rome, Italy
supersuit, 3m
30 July 2009
50m breaststroke
Adam Peaty
25.95
Budapest, Hungary
3m
25 July 2017
100m breaststroke
Adam Peaty
56.88
Gwangju, South Korea
3m
21 July 2019
200m breaststroke
Qin Haiyang
2:05.48
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
28 July 2023
50m butterfly
Andriy Govorov
22.27
Rome, Italy
3m
1 July 2018
100m butterfly
Caeleb Dressel
49.45
Tokyo, Japan
3.02m
30 July 2021
200m butterfly
Kristof Milak
1:50.34
Budapest, Hungary
3m
21 June 2022
200m particular person medley
Ryan Lochte
1:54.00
Shanghai, China
3m
28 July 2011
400m particular person medley
Leon Marchand
4:02.50
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
23 July 2023
4 × 100 m freestyle relay
United States
3:08.24
Beijing, China
supersuit, 3m
11 August 2008
4 x 200 m freestyle relay
United States
6:58.55
Rome, Italy
supersuit, 3m
31 July 2009
4 x 100 m medley relay
United States
3:26.78
Tokyo, Japan
3.02m
31 July 2021
MIXED WORLD RECORDS
4 x 100 m combined freestyle relay
Australia
3:18.83
Fukuoka, Japan
3m
27 July 2023
4 x 100 m combined medley relay
United States
3:37.43
Paris, France
2.15m
3 August 2024
