Swimming superfan Reed Shimberg helped us out with calculating improvement numbers at the Olympic Trials, and tonight he took a break from studying for his med school exam tomorrow to help us tabulate the numbers from day 1 of the Men’s NCAA Championships.
The early returns are much better than we saw at the women’s meet. Whereas last weekend, all three days hovered at/below 20% improvements from seed to prelims swims, the men’s meet was closer to 30%.
- 200 FR 7 imp, 28 ent, 25%
- 500 free 15 imp, 53 ent, 29.5%
- 200 IM 18 imp, 61 ent, 29.5%
- 50 free, 13 imp, 44 ent, 29.5%
- 400 MR, 8 imp, 28 ent, 28.6%
- TOTAL – 61 imp, 214 ent. 28.5%
For those interested in overall improvement (noting that not everybody needs to use their full energy in prelims to make the A-Final, like Vlad Morozov for example, here are the numbers that tell what percentage improved their seed time with either a prelims or a finals swim. The 400 medley relay was the really striking number, where almost half of the teams improved. That seems like a really high number as compared to history. In total, one third of entries improved over their seed.
- 200 FR 9 imp, 28 ent, 32.1%
- 500 free 18 imp, 53 ent, 33.9%
- 200 IM 19 imp, 61 ent, 31.1%
- 50 free 15 imp, 44 ent, 34.1%
- 400 MR 13 imp, 28 ent, 46.4%
- TOTAL – 74 imp, 214 ent, 34.5%
The improvement percentages are in the same ball park when you use the same formula for the improvement at the Olympic Trials.The same goes for the women.
this is great to see as the women’s meet was so confusing based on the time gains.
and i WASN’T buying the whole “the pool is cold” bit.
How does that compare to years past?