Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.
The 15th FINA World Championships closed a few days ago, and while some swimmers have returned home, and others have gone on to Eindhoven to compete in the FINA World Cup series, the rest of us are left to wonder — but what did it all mean, man?
We’ve teamed with Christer Magnusson of SCMSOM.SE to take reams of data and boil it down into some digestible numbers. The conclusion:
Overall, swimming in Barcelona – which hosted Worlds for the second time in 10 years – was fast. Faster than Shanghai in 2011, and if we are going strictly by national records, it was faster than London.
World Championships By the Numbers:
Number of Athletes: 2,293
Countries Represented: 181
Attendance: 267,000
World records: 6
World championship records: 9
National records: 202
Number of Volunteers: 2,500
Number of Volunteers Who Found Jessica Hardy’s Misplaced Engagement Ring: 1
Host Country Performs Well
The Spaniards swam fast in front of their hometown crowd, easily leading the national record table by breaking 16 National Records over the course of swimming competition. They won 4 medals in swimming (and another ten in other events, giving them a total exceeding that of the Germans, Italians, and even the French).
The Russians, who were expected to perform well based on some of their blistering performances at World University Games (which they also hosted), at least somewhat fulfilled expectations by setting 10 National records. The Americans and Canadians each posted 6 new national marks, with the Aussies setting three.
Faster Than Shanghai
Post-Olympic years are always a bit of a crap-shoot – the Olympians and veterans usually take some time off, while the athletes who just missed their respective National teams the year before train with a chip on their shoulder. But this year Worlds was a quick meet, in what some would consider on “off” year, with more national records being broken than there were in London last year.
Here are how things went down compared to the past couple World Champs (I only included Rome because, well, the numbers are hilarious).
Barcelona 2013 Shanghai 2011 Rome 2009
National Records 202 168 785
American Records 5 6 31
World Champ Records 9 2 105
World Records 6 2 43
To give you an idea of the freakish nature of the Rome meet, the World Championship record for the 50m breaststroke was broken no fewer than 8 times by 4 different athletes.
Swimmers Improved on Entry Times 40% of the Time, Every Time
Best times are fun. Heck, they are downright super. While not every swimmer is competing for a gold medal or world record, each and every one of them do want to break their best times.
Honduras led this category in Barcelona, going for 8 for 8. Denmark was right behind them with 90% of their swimmers improving on their entry times. (The average from all entries was 40%.)
Other notables:
Venezuela 11/16 (69%)
Czech Republic 13/22 (59%)
USA 34/68 (50%)
South Africa 16/32 (50%)
China 19/55 (35%)
Australia 17/52 (33%)
Canada 14/45 (31%)
Japan 10/46 (22%)
Germany 8/42 (19%)
Finals vs. Medals
As expected, the Americans were frequently found in finals, with 58 appearances in the top 8. The Aussies and Japanese were 2nd and 3rd, respectively, with 28 and 24 swimmers making it to the final evening swims.
Most noteworthy is Great Britain, who only got one medal out of 17 finalists (6%). The Germans, who didn’t have a great meet overall – and are doing some soul searching of their own – also won one medal via 10 finalists.
Here is how the top 17 countries did in terms of winning medals when given a lane–
|
FINALS |
MEDALS |
% |
|
| USA |
58 |
29 |
50 |
| AUS |
28 |
13 |
46 |
| JPN |
24 |
6 |
25 |
| CHN |
22 |
9 |
41 |
| FRA |
18 |
9 |
50 |
| GBR |
17 |
1 |
6 |
| HUN |
16 |
5 |
32 |
| RUS |
15 |
8 |
53 |
| ESP |
13 |
4 |
31 |
| BRA |
12 |
5 |
42 |
| ITA |
12 |
2 |
17 |
| CAN |
11 |
3 |
27 |
| GER |
10 |
1 |
10 |
| SWE |
9 |
2 |
22 |
| DEN |
8 |
4 |
50 |
| NED |
7 |
4 |
57 |
| RSA |
7 |
5 |
71 |
The big problem with the GB swim team is that there good enough to get into the finals but they dont have that killer winning instincts that alot of other countries have.After such a terrible home Olympics some many retirements and newbies brought in first time were a big factor , alot of PBs but just 1 medal , bring the trials to July clearly wasnt the right more for the more experienced swimmers and Carin tired herself out in the 400m ruining her shot at the 800m/1500m and Jamieson clearly not at his physical peak crumbled big changes need to be made if they want to make any sort of improvement for the European Championships next year.
Us had a significant drop off from Beijing 08 to Rome 09 in the total medal count, but none at all from London 12 to Barca 13 despite the retirement of phelps, absence of soni and failure to qualify for Schmidt. it is hard to predict what will happen in 15 and 16 because Adrian, grevers, lochte and clary will be older but there are bound to be some new commers like Kalisz, jeager, mcbroom, the breast strokers and feigen this year. The women have a bright future with franklin and ledecky leading the way. i think the stroke the us needs to improve on the most is the fly both 100 and 200, both genders (only two medals in… Read more »
This has been a topic of discussion a lot recently, but our 15-16 year old boys are putting up the numbers lately. Just tonight, Dressel set a new NAG record in the 200 (swimming in the B Final, to boot) with a 1:48.64. Vissering sets another NAG record 25 minutes later with a 1:01.94 in the 100 breast. These young men will really put on a show in Rio (or international level meets in the future). Not to mention Bentz, Seliskar, Lynch, Harty, Egan, and the elder Conger or Murphy. What a generation we have on our hands. Incredible!
We will have to wait for World Youth.. this amazing generation is not anymore a US or Australia only phenomenon.. all countries have youngsters who are litteraly crushing age records with ease..
When was the last time there was a generation this good? Not just in the US, but the world, too? Was there even one? (I’m very young so this is my generation).
I am impressed with the youngsters around the world.Never was that fast…here in Brazil, some records are falling by 1-2seconds…amazing.Even in women side(very weak field, not many swimmers because of prejudice), we have girls of 14years-old doing 25.9 in 50 free(and she is thin, not muscular).
I’m not surprised. The world is getting faster and faster every day. It’s just a matter of who is producing those fast swimmers; that is the only factor. Hopefully it will be the USA, and I’m confident it is.
I could pick up some to list
Fastest 50-100 freestyler by now is Sedov..
But Kyle Chalmes seem to be the most impressive if we take all ages..
On 400-1500 free I would bet on Australia.. but I don´t see any of this generation guys taking over Sun Yang..
On 200 free it is hard to know.. US may have it group record holders.. but no one is even close of beating Thorpe Age records.. so it is hard to get a picture of australia..
On Back I would be between Murphy Conger and Andre dos Santos.. both are faster than Peirsol at their ages..
Hard to bet on other styles.. would need some help to get all info.… Read more »
I think we never had such a strong generation ever…
Missy, who is the undisputed fastest 200 backstrocker, her age records are already beaten on the World by Ustinova.. All top freestylers (Cielo Adrian Morozov Magnussen) age recorda are almost all gone..
But I would not say they will be the future.. plenty of guys that when get old they don´t live up to expected.. and even we have lot of swimmers who before 20 21 years were not even someone everybody would bother to notice..
If you would take a look at the European Junior Championships, you could see that its rather France who has to be worried, with Russian looking to be very strong in the future.
I think the country that needs to be very very concerned (apart from Germany) is GBR. They just had the home olympics, they have had really huge funding in the past 10 years (from the lottery) and yet all they can show in this WC is 1 medal. And Halsall is not getting any younger and competition in womens sprint is getting extremely fierce.
For some reason, the timing of their trials (which mimicked USA) backfired. It’s baffling. Their top swimmers need not be fully tapered, if at all, to qualify, and yet Carlin and the male breasstrokers did not deliver.
I blamed carlin’s failure on bad advice. I kept saying during the week before the trials that Carlin should… Read more »
I wonder if there is a correlation to the amount of money Federations spend on their athletes and the number of medals they get? How much does swimming spend on the athletes, staff, expenses per capita vs the other Federations would be interesting. South Africa is probably getting their biggest bang for the buck, but I think German swimming is probably hurting financially.
I think this is one the best measure on return on investment.
On investment, it’s not only the money spend on the preparation, but on the age development, spent on clubs, on college swimming, etc. I would guess USA spent far more than the next country.
Not South Africa, but Lithuania might have spent close to zero (Ruta was developed and traned in UK) if everything taken into account, and get the best bang of their buck
i don’t think the money all comes from comes from USA swimming.
thinks of all the summer league, high school and college teams. That’s millions of dollars in club membership and property taxes, millions of dollars in high school state athletic funding, and millions of dollars of football and basketball revenue all going to swimming
With men’s swimming in particular, Title IX is taking away some of the funding. There now has to be an equal number of teams for both genders in high school, so the least paricipated sports for men have to go. That means most likely swimming. This goes for college as well. I wouldn’t say high school swimming makes careers (it may enhance them, but it won’t be the deciding factor in success), so the funding may not be all too important there. Everything else you said, though, makes sense.
GB is spending far more money for swimming than Germany. GB is spending about 9 Million Euro per year, Germany about 2.
Franklin won 3 individuals, Ledecky won 3 individuals, Lochte won 2 individuals, Grevers won 1 individual. Am I missing anyone else?
I think the medal count looks a lot better on paper than it really is especially on the women’s side. Take out the two studs, and we don’t win any individual golds.
On the men’s side, we only won 3 individual golds. Phelps used to win more than that on his own.
It seems like a lot of people are overly excited about the great up and coming swimmers, but we are clearly not as strong as most think we are.
Phelps won more than that three times out of 13 major international meets. Athens, Melbourne and Beijing, obviously
it’s hardly as though Phelps would have individually outperformed the existing mens team because in one of the past 3 major championships did he win even 3 individual golds
But you can say that for any other country too:
Take out Hosszu, and Hungary win zilch in womens.
Take out Gyurta and Hungary win zilch in men
Take out Ruta and its Nada for Lithuania.
Not sure why americans are complaining about the results when they finish at the top far above anyone else.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say without Ledecky and Franklin, US women’s swimming is nothing. There’s Beisel. She’s only 20, and we often forget that. There’s Simone Manuel. There’s Dirado. There’s Romano. We have the trio of Bootsma, Pelton, and Smoglia for backstroke in addition to Franklin. USA Swimming is in good hands with these young women (and men, if you scroll down). Take a look at Juniors for up and comers. We won’t fall off the radar if we lost Missy and Katie.
I would be between there is nothing and there is something..
Beisel.. she got a really bad luck having Katinka and and Ye Shiwen on her events, same for Dirado….
Simone can be great.. but I would not take my bets against Cate Campbell..
The only ones you listed I could bet on a gold medal would be the backstrokers..
Very poor meet for Germany.
Open Water did well, though.
I am just curious…is there a particular reason why the US never gets to host the WC? 15th time…and as it stands the next 4 games are already locked in with other locations.
It’s an extremely expensive event to host, and you can’t find a good loction willing to spend that much money. After they lost out in 2005 to Montreal (which went on to have its own money troubles that were bad enough the head of the organizing committee committed suicide) Long Beach was pretty frank about how much money the city would have been out if they had won, and that’s probably scared other US bidders.
The countries that do hold the championships tend to have huge state (or in Russia’s case oil company) backing. Or like Rome 2009, effectively have the event run by the mafia- the corruption trials caused by meet-related building projects went on for years. … Read more »
I put the blame on USASwimming. They could have taken the lead, be more proactive, work together with cities and get sponsors etc.
I’d argue that not a single international meeting has never been arranged with a zero controversy anywhere in the world. There is always people who are against such meetings. I’m not blaming them. On the other hand, if you must have 95 % backing for your bid before filing it, then we’re not going to see international meetings anymore in any sports.
I’m convinced current hosts are happy to host their polite American guests who are always capable of executing at high level but it really is unusual that such a powerhouse in swimming has never held the meeting before. As ASwimFan pointed out earlier when we have this conversation, the USA has hosted the world championships in gymnastics many… Read more »
Gymnastics is cheap to host because it’s effectively a one arena event + a little bit of overflow convention space for warm-up purposes. Same goes for swimming Short Course Worlds, which were held in Indianapolis a few years back.
The big problem with a figure skating Worlds is trying to schedule around professional ice hockey leagues because you’ve got to do the ice differently (markings, temperature) and you pretty much take a sheet of ice out of commission for three weeks to go hockey-week of figure skating -hockey
I don’t think the general population is as fond of swimming as a sport to host an international-level meet. Jump ahead to 2024, where Boston may place a bid for the Olympics, and no one around here wants them. Not a single body. It would be cool to watch them close to home, but I think it’s much more logistical than just funding. Traffic, infrastructure, contracting, and lack of interest are the big reasons, to name a few. It’s sad that people don’t appreciate swimming and Olympic sports as much as other sports, it really is. But that’s the way it is. Lack of interest is killing our sport. Simple as that.