2024 Summer Swimming Pick ‘Em Post-Mortem: How Did Our Readers Do?

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We’ve already announced the winner of our pick’em contest for the big summer swimming championship in Paris, France (read all about it here), but let’s revisit the highs and lows of the competition. Betting the chalk is usually a safe bet to have a decent showing in these contests, but picking surprise medalists is how you stand out from the field.

Let’s break down the biggest surprise winners, where SwimSwam got the correct predictions, and relive some of the most exciting moments of the summer.

Biggest Surprises to Win

1. Nicolo Martinenghi in the 100 breast (1)
2. Tatjana Smith in the 100 breast/Kristof Milak in the 100 fly (14)
3. —
4. China in the men’s 4×100 medley relay (63)
5. Torri Huske in the 100 fly (120)
6. Pan Zhanle in the 100 free (140)
7. Daniel Wiffen in the 800 free (148)
8. Sarah Sjostrom in the 100 free (169)

Nicolo Martinenghi‘s win in the 100 breast takes the cake for the least predicted gold medalist. Our official previews penciled him in for 5th, and only one person bet on him to win. The field featured multiple athletes with 57-or-faster personal bests, so it seemed like a long shot for the Italian to find his way onto the podium. Nevertheless, a surprisingly slow final gave him the opportunity to get his hand on the wall first.

Tatjana Smith and Kristof Milak surprised our readers in their specialty stroke 100s, with only 14 entries each picking them to win. Milak is somewhat surprising, considering he is the #2 performer in history, but most people bet on Caeleb Dressel to defend his title.

Interestingly, neither 100 free world record holders garnered a majority of votes to win gold. (I’ll take some responsibility here; I was bullish on Kyle Chalmers’ experience topping the field.)

Charlotte Wells can put a feather in her cap for tapping China to win the 4×100 medley relay, a pick most of our readers disagreed with. But the U.S. men’s streak of dominance in this event came to an end, anchored by Pan Zhanle flying home in the fastest 100 free split, ever.

Biggest Surprises to NOT Win

1. USA in the men’s 4×100 medley relay (893)
2. Gretchen Walsh in the 100 fly (787)
3. Caeleb Dressel in the 100 fly (634)
4. Adam Peaty in the 100 breast (613)
5. Mollie O’Callaghan in the 100 free (607)
6. Regan Smith in the 100 back (595)
7. Sam Short in the 400 free (579)
8. Ryan Murphy in the 200 back (564)

On the flip side, let’s take a look at which events hurt our readers the most.

Four individual world record holders did not win their event: Gretchen Walsh, Caeleb Dressel, Adam Peaty, and Regan Smith. Everyone except for Dressel still picked up silver, as he failed to advance from semis in the 100 fly. (One more individual world record holder earned silver: Kristof Milak in the 200 fly.)

Our official picks were right there with our readers in these events with the exception of Peaty in the 100 breast; we expected Qin Haiyang to win and correctly called Peaty for silver.

Australians Mollie O’Callaghan and Sam Short both finished 4th in the 100 free and 400 free respectively, despite picking up a majority of votes to win gold.

Dressel and Ryan Murphy are the only two on this list who didn’t swim the final of these races. Both American men did not advance out of semis, which dealt a devastating blow to some of our readers’ entries.

Best Predicted Events

1. Women’s 4×200 Free (26.4 pts)
2. Women’s 4×100 Free (24.7 pts)
3. Women’s 4×100 Medley (24.3 pts)
4. Women’s 400 Free (23.8 pts)
5. Women’s 400 IM (21.3 pts)

Worst Predicted Events

1. Men’s 200 Back (5.1 pts)
2. Men’s 100 Free (6.2 pts)
3. Men’s 200 Breast/Men’s 800 Free (6.3 pts)
4.  —
5. Women’s 100 Free (6.7 pts)

Our final metric is calculated from the average points earned in each event. The Australian women’s freestyle dominance is to thank for three of the most easily predicted events, but surprisingly was also the downfall in the 100 free which ranks 5th on the worst predicted list.

Readers had a much more difficult time predicting the men’s events, as a lot of the expected medalists were off their bests in Paris.

Thanks for Playing!

We had 985 participants, and unique daily winners every day of the meet. It’s always fun to put your money where your mouth is, and it adds another layer of personal investment to these major meets. We hope you enjoyed playing. Keep an eye out for our future pick’ems with even more bragging rights on the line.