London 2012: Who is Affected by the Tweaks to the Olympic Schedule

It’s 2012, which means that “the next Olympic year” is finally “this year”. We’ll begin our Olympic coverage with a look at the tweak in the Olympic schedule since 2008, and who is most benefited by the change.

Besides the obvious change (moving the semis and finals from the morning to the evening), there was one change in the actual order of events. In the 2nd finals session, the IOC has moved the women’s 100 fly to the first event of the session, and the 100 back semi-final to the last (individual) event of the session. The women’s 100 breaststroke semi-final and 400 freestyle final fall in the middle of the meet.

There’s also an extra two days between the distance freestyles in the pool and the open water races (5 off days instead of the 3 we saw in Beijing).

For the full event timeline from FINA, check out the official schedule. For a complete Aquatics calendar, click here.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

The move makes absolutely perfect sense. For starters, the women’s 400 free is the event in this session that has virtually zero possibility of someone attempting a double, so it makes sense to put it smack-dead in the middle of the session to give as much rest as possible to the other swimmers.

Further, this schedule change recognizes the growing contingent of elite backstroker-butterflier swimmers.

Let’s look at the winners of the moves:

Changes to Day 2 Schedule

Ryan Lochte’s Chance at 8 Golds – If Lochte wants to match Michael Phelps’ 8 gold medals, it will take at least 5 individual victories. The obvious entries are the 200 free, the 200 back, the 200 IM, and the 400 IM: the 4 events that he won in Shanghai. Locating a 5th event is where things become tricky (and where he has to do some real thinking). With the women’s 400 freestyle moving between the 200 free and 100 back semi’s, he’s able to add a few extra minutes of rest between those races, if that’s the way he chooses to go.  Though he’d probably be able to final in both even if they were back-to-back, adding a few extra minutes by replacing a 100 fly final with a 400 free final, between races should help. It probably doesn’t make a huge difference in his quest to make a 400 free relay finals spot, because a 100 back semi-final (with two walkouts and introductions) is allotted the same amount of time in the official schedule as a 400 free final (8 mintues) – as compared to 4 for the 100 fly final.

It’s sort of like the theory of baseball pitchers. The number of pitches they throw in any given inning is more significant than the total number of pitches thrown. Adding a few extra minutes in between races will help Lochte, especially given the race-management issues he had in Beijing.

Natalie Coughlin Fans – This leaves a crack, however slight, that Coughlin might attempt to qualify for the Olympic Team in the 100 fly. Her only other events in the meet’s first 4 days are the 100 back and the 400 free relay (where she’ll probably swim finals only). She would have to swim the 100 fly semi’s and the 400 free relay finals in the same session, but they’d be separated by roughly 90 minutes of swimming and medals. Coughlin ranked in the top-25 in the world in both races in 2011 (the only swimmer to do so), thanks to a 58.05 in the 100 fly (t-14th) at a non-taper meet. A longshot, but there’s a glimmer of hope.

Emily Seebohm – Probably the most likely swimmer in the field to actually attempt the daring double, Seebohm ranked in the top 25 in the World in both the 100 back and 100 fly in 2010 (something only Coughlin pulled off). Mostly, this might give her the motivation to attempt the double at Australian Trials – though she’d still have a mass of Australians to get through even to qualify in the 100 fly.

Ingvid Snildal – The 23-year old Norweigan is unlikely to make both semi-finals (she’s more of a 50-meter specialist), but she is the Norwegian National Record holder in both the 100 back and 100 fly. At the very least, if she makes the 100 fly final, like she did in Rome in 2009, then she won’t have the 100 back semifinal a few minutes beforehand to wear her down. Of note, at 2009 Worlds, the 100 fly final was also first, and she really excelled at that meet.

The Future – This really seems to be more of a forward-looking move than anything else. There are some good, young swimmers who could be interested in trying this double down the line. American Rachel Bootsma is one. It’s sort of a chicken-and-the-egg type of situation. The schedule change had to be made before swimmers would start to pursue this double, so I’d imagine that

Not Laure Manaudou – Laure Manaudou is swimming the 400 free next week at the Austin Grand Prix, and is a former World Record holder in the event. It was probably a longshot for her to swim the 400 freestyle anyways, but this schedule change pretty much puts a nail in the coffin. After having said publicly that the 100 back would be one of her focus events for London, it would be pretty difficult to attempt this double. Manaudou ranks 4th all-time in the 400 free, and 16th in the 100 back.

Changes to Open Water Schedule

As more and more swimmers get in to open water swimming, many are trying to balance it with the distance pool-based freestyles, if for no other reason than there are better financial opportunities available still to pool swimmers. Let’s look at the swimmers who stand to profit the most from the 5 days off between the distance freestyles (800 women’s/1500 men’s) and the open water races. There were only 3 off days in Beijing.

Melissa Gorman – The Australian has already qualified for the 2012 London Olympic Team in the open water 10km swim by way of her 4th-place finish at Worlds. At worlds, however, open water was before pool swimming, versus the Olympics where the open water swimming comes after pool swimming. In Shanghai, she finished 13th in the 800 in the early round.

Andrew Gemmell/Sean Ryan – Alex Meyer is the United States’ representative in the 10km for 2012, but there is an increasing log-jam in American men’s pool distance swimming, while the open water program remains thin (much thinner than the women). As some of these guys gravitate towards open water, but still have a pool-foundation, they could try and pull off this double – if the IOC continues to spread out the pool swimming and open water swimming. Andrew Gemmell and Sean Ryan, both members of the World Championships open water team, seem like the two who would most likely fall into this category perhaps in Rio in 2016.