This article originally appeared in the 2024 Olympics Preview edition of SwimSwam Magazine, courtesy of author Daniel Takata. Subscribe to SwimSwam Magazine here.
Every four years as the Summer Olympics approach, numbers, records and rankings relating to a major international sporting event are revealed.
This kind of information will likely be featured frequently in the news until the Paris Olympics begin on July 26th. Michael Phelps's astonishing record – 28 medals, 22 of them gold, and eight gold medals in a single competition. We will also remember the incredible feats of swimmers such as: Ian ThorpeJanet Evans, Mark Spitz, Johnny Weissmuller, Dawn Fraser and the best numbers from the best swimmers in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Emma McKeon and Caleb Dressel.
But by digging deeper into the numbers and history of Olympic swimming, there are other interesting statistics we can analyze, many of which you probably didn't know.
A tough event to qualify for the finals
For example, do you know which event was the most difficult to get to the final? In other words, which event had the smallest difference between 1st and 8th place at the pre-final stage (qualifying or semi-final)?
Obviously, you would expect the smallest margin to be in the 50m freestyle, the fastest event in absolute terms. And that was indeed the case: in 2004, just 0.20 seconds separated the fastest semi-finalist, Roland Sjoman of South Africa (21.99), from eighth-placed Duje Draganja of Croatia (22.19). Interestingly, both athletes made it onto the podium in the final, winning silver and bronze medals respectively behind American Gary Hall Jr.
But it's fairer to make a comparison between sports by analysing the average difference between athletes every 50 metres, and no sport in this comparison compares better than the men's 400m individual medley at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
At that time, Australia Brendon Smith In the qualifying round, he qualified with the fastest time of 4 minutes 9.27 seconds. The final position was the British Max Litchfield4:10.20. The difference was just 0.97, or 0.12 per 50 meters. Oddly enough, seven of the eight swimmers in the final improved their qualifying times, except for the winning American swimmer. Chase CullisThe qualifying rounds were very close, with Jay Litherland of the United States winning the silver medal in 4 minutes 10.28 seconds, a time that did not qualify him for the heats.
For women, the deciding match was tougher in the 200m freestyle at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Australia's Suzie O'Neill recorded a best time of 1:59.37 in the semifinals, while China's Luna Wang came in eighth with 1:59.97. The difference of 0.60 seconds between the two is just 0.15 seconds per 50 meters. However, unlike the 2021 men's 400m individual medley, this event saw significant improvement leading up to the final, with all eight swimmers improving their qualifying times, and O'Neill winning the gold medal in 1:58.24.
A TIGHTER PODIUM
Using the same analysis, we can find the closest podium finishes in Olympic history. Again, in absolute terms, the 50 freestyle event stands out: in 2016, the difference between winner Pernille Blom of Denmark (24.07) and third-placed Aliaksandra Herasimenia of Belarus was just 0.04 seconds.
With an average lead of 50 meters, the battle for the podium in the men's 800m freestyle at the 2021 Olympics will be fierce. Bobby Finke Winner in 7:41.87, beating Ukraine by 0.46 Mykhailo RomanchukThe bronze medallist shows a difference of just under 0.03 per 50 metres.
The highlight of the women's competition was the 400m freestyle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when Rebecca Adlington won in 4 minutes 3.22 seconds, beating fellow British athlete Joanne Jackson, who won the bronze medal, by 0.30 seconds, or just under 0.037 seconds per 50 metres.
Smallest winning margin
So what was the smallest gap ever recorded between the top two swimmers? There is no need to look into it further here, as these are well-known cases that ended in a tie. In Olympic history, there were three cases, all involving American swimmers.
In 1984, Americans Nancy Hogshead and Carrie Steinseifer won the 100m freestyle in 55.92 seconds, the first time they had ever tied for first place, and each was awarded a gold medal. In 2000, Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony ErvinThe two, who were training partners, shared first place in the men's 50m freestyle in a time of 21.98 seconds. Simone Manuel Canada Penny Oleksiak She shared the gold medal in the women's 100m freestyle with a time of 52.70 seconds.
In fact, there was already a tie for first place at the 1972 Olympics. Sweden's Gunnar Larsson and American Tim McKee tied in the 400 individual medley with a time of 4:31.98. However, Larsson won by two thousandths of a second, 4:31.981 to 4:31.983. The 1973 World Championships used timekeeping to the nearest thousandth of a second, but this was found to be less than the thickness of a layer of paint on a wall and was never adopted again as it could have affected the results. All international swimming competitions since 1973 have been judged to the nearest hundredth of a second, with ties broken by that margin.
Biggest winning margin
If these are the minimum margins, what are the maximum margins?
In 1896, at the first Athens Olympic Games, Alfred Hajos of Hungary won the 1200m freestyle in 18 minutes 22.2 seconds, a margin of victory of 2 minutes 41.2 seconds, the largest margin of victory ever recorded in an Olympic swimming event. In terms of average margin of victory per 50 meters, the largest margin of victory ever was also recorded in the 500m freestyle in 1896, when Paul Neumann of Austria won by 1 minute 45 seconds, or 10.5 seconds per 50 meters.
However, we need to look at things objectively. Since it was the first Olympic Games, there were fewer athletes competing, and moreover, the competition took place in the open water of the Bay of Zea, not in a pool. Therefore, it is difficult to compare the competition at the first Olympic Games with that today.
Looking back half a century, for example, the biggest difference in 50 meters was recorded by Petra Schneider of East Germany in the women's 400m individual medley at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She won in 4 minutes 36.29 seconds, beating silver medalist Sharon Davis of Great Britain by 10.54 seconds, a difference of 1.32 seconds per 50 meters.
The biggest difference this century was in the 100 breaststroke, where Australia's Raisel Jones and Great Britain's Adam Peaty In 2008 and 2016, he won by an astounding margin of 1.56 seconds and 0.78 seconds per 50 meters respectively.
Age Record
Some swimmers are famous for holding age records. Dara Torres famously became the oldest Olympic swimming medalist in history at age 41 in 2008. Anthony Ervin In 2016, she won the 50m freestyle, becoming the oldest gold medalist in history at age 35.
But few know that Denmark's Inge Sorensen is also the youngest swimmer to ever win an Olympic medal. In 1936, she won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke at age 12. She is also the youngest swimmer to ever win an Olympic medal in an individual event across all sports combined. When it comes to gold medals, the youngest swimmer to win a gold medal is Japan's Kyoko Iwasaki, who won the 200-meter breaststroke in 1992, just six days after turning 14.
Those are records that will be hard to beat in Paris. But one that may be broken is the record for the oldest person to stand on the podium. The 2016 men's 50m freestyle medallists were: Anthony Ervin (35 years old), Florent Manaudou (25 years old) and Nathan Adrian (27 years old) have a combined life expectancy of 29 years and 199 days. Cameron McEvoy (2023 World Champion), Manadou (2021 Olympic Silver Medal), Bruno Fratus (2021 Olympic Bronze Medal) Ben Proud (2022 World Champion), and Christian Gkolomeev The 50m freestyle will feature some of the world's best athletes, all of whom will be over 30 years old in 2024. Will this be the first time that all athletes over 30 years old will be on the podium?
Most appearances
Only four swimmers have achieved the feat of competing in six Olympic Games: Turkey's Deriya Buyukunci (1992-2012), Sweden's Lars Frolander (1992-2012) and Therese Alshammer (1996-2016) and Tunisia's Oussama Mehroury (2000-2021). Of these, Mehroury is the only one to have competed in both pool and open water events.
In Paris, four current swimmers could achieve this feat if they qualify. Katinka HosszuEvelyn Verast, Zuzanna Yakavos and Chile's Kristel Koblis, all of whom made their Olympic debuts at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Most final appearances
Michael Phelps is the swimmer with the most medals. He is also the swimmer with the most appearances in Olympic finals in history. He competed 29 times between 2000 and 2016. He missed the podium twice, in the 200m butterfly in 2000 and the 400m individual medley in 2012. However, he won gold medals in events in which he did not compete in the final. In 2004, Ian Crocker swam the butterfly in his place in the 4 × 100m medley. Franziska van Almsick of Germany is the swimmer with the most appearances in the women's finals. He competed 17 times between 1992 and 2004.
Among individual athletes, Phelps also leads the way in final appearances with 18, while Zimbabwe's Christy Coventry leads the women's final appearances with 10. Coventry won 10 gold medals in individual events this summer. Katie LedeckyHe has already won the award eight times since 2012.
Only three athletes have reached five finals in the same event: Dara Torres in the 4x100m freestyle (1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2008); Michael Phelps Men's 200 Butterfly (2000-2016) Federica Pellegrini She recorded this in the women's 200m freestyle (2004-2021), a record that only one other athlete, an Australian, has managed to match in Paris. Kate Campbellwill compete in her fifth final in the women's 4x100m freestyle. Ryosuke Irie He was able to attempt the feat in the men's 200m backstroke but was unable to qualify for the Olympics.
Other gains from Paris
In Paris, Campbell has a chance to win her fifth medal in the women's 4x100m freestyle, matching Dara Torres as the only swimmer to win five medals in the same event. Katie Ledecky She won the 800m freestyle for the fourth time, an unprecedented feat for a women's event. Michael Phelps Between 2004 and 2016, she won the 200m medley four times.
Another feat some swimmers will attempt in Paris is to win some events for the second time, something that has never been done before. There are seven events that no swimmer has ever won more than twice. Two of those are the women's 1,500m freestyle and the men's 800m freestyle, which were held for the first time in 2021. Katie Ledecky and Bobby Finke The other events are the women's 200m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, and the men's 200m freestyle. The current winners of each event are: Arianne Titmuss, Lydia Jacoby, Maggie McNeill, Zhang Yufei and Tom Deanand everyone has a chance to repeat the victory.
No swimmer has ever won an Olympic medal in the breaststroke and butterfly. If he could swim the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke, he would be the French Leon Marchand He has a chance to achieve this feat as he is the reigning world champion in the former and the third-fastest swimmer in the world in 2023 in the latter. He will have to work hard for it as the finals for both events will take place in the same session.
What would be extremely rare would be to win a medal in both the freestyle and breaststroke events: only once in Olympic history has this happened, when Hungary's Eva Novak won silver in both the women's 400m freestyle and 200m breaststroke in 1952. Kate Douglas He has won silver medals in the 50m freestyle and 200m breaststroke at the World Championships to be held in Doha in 2024, making him a strong candidate to win.
Only two swimmers in history have ever reclaimed gold medals in individual events. Michael Phelps 200 Butterfly and Anthony Ervin In the 50m freestyle, he was ranked second in 2016. In Paris, Penny Oleksiak, Simone Manuel (100m freestyle) Katie Ledecky (200, 400 free), Lily King (100 breasts), Katinka Hosszu (200, 400 IM), Florent Manaudou (50 free); Kyle Chalmers (100 free), Gregorio Paltrinieri (1500 yen free) Ryan Murphy (100, 200 back). How many of these amazing feats will we see this summer?
