TritonWear and Swim Swam are bringing you the best in swimming race analysis. With the power of TritonWear, you can have an in-depth analysis of your practice every day with zero effort. Today we are having a closer look of once-in-a-lifetime race of 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
The women’s 100m freestyle final at the 2016 Olympics was slated to be one of the most exciting races of the competition. It was entirely possible that the gold and silver medals could be claimed by sisters Cate Campbell and Bronte Campbell of Australia. Bronte had a pair of World Championship titles from the year before and Cate had just broken the 100 Freestyle world record heading into Rio. Speculation was rampant about who might take the Olympic title. But although the women’s 100 freestyle did turn into an epic showdown, it wasn’t at all as predicted.
Cate rocketed into the lead on the first length with incredible efficiency. Taking only 30 strokes, she flipped under world record pace in a blistering 24.77. Her stroke index value was 5.36, far exceeding that of every other swimmer in the race. Meanwhile, Bronte was only a few tenths of a second behind – it looked as though the Australian sprint sisters were indeed in a position to take the top two spots on the podium.
But other competitors began to move up in the back half of the race. Simone Manuel of the United States had the fastest turn in the pool by far, clocking in at 0.55 seconds. She used her momentum off the wall to surge into a long, powerful stroke – the only swimmer to increase her DPS on the second length. Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden also blasted off the turn to propel herself into striking distance of the leaders. She maintained a relatively high rate of 1.2 seconds per stroke that helped her close the gap.
With 15 meters to go, the field was nearly even. The Campbell sisters struggled to maintain their lead while Manuel and Sjostrom battled for an edge. But suddenly a new challenger entered the mix: Penny Oleksiak, the young breakout star from Canada. Nobody saw her coming – she’d split a full second slower than Cate Campbell on the opening 50 and was stuck back in seventh place. But Penny had been saving her energy to shift into a higher gear, hitting top speed in the pool at 1.85 m/s on the second length. Her powerful kick thrust her into medal contention as the swimmers neared the finish.
Manuel and Oleksiak broke into a slight lead in the final few meters and fought stroke-for-stroke into the wall. Spectators held their breath as they reached in synchronization and slammed the touchpad together to tie for gold in an Olympic record time of 52.70. Sjostrom got her hand on the wall next to claim the bronze in 52.99, shutting out both of the Campbell sisters.
The come-from-behind finish from two underdogs, resulting in a closely contested race that was exciting through the final stroke, made this race one of the most epic showdowns of the Rio Olympics.
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Great analysis. 🙂 It would be awesome if the SwimSwam athlete biography added a section to show time progression by year, by event. You could even further link the above type data. This is a current feature of the IAAF athlete biography for track and field athletes. Google ‘Allyson Felix IAAF’ for example and look at the IAAF link. It’s cool to be able to look up the yearly progression of Mo Farah over 5K/10K for his career versus other great distance runners over their careers, or yearly progression of hurdlers from Bobby Kersee’s training group versus the yearly progression of hurdlers from Clemson’s training group. It’d be cool to look at that type of progression data on the SwimSwam… Read more »
It would also be nice to have their reaction times off the blocks.
Can we see the 2nd 50?
If you click on the blob on the graph at 100m then you can see the second 50 stats 🙂
derp.
The big thing for me: Cate Campebell’s DPS. That’s utterly brilliant. I’ve said it many times – Her stroke economy is what makes her the sprint freestyler with the most potential in the world. Oleksiak is the only sprinter I can see getting to CC times anytime soon.
Yes, i agree, but in the short-medium term I’d consider other three names..
That “swimming exception” named Rikako Ikee, who is small-sized but extraordinarly long and flowing in the water.
Difficult to race vs great athletes 20 centimetres higher and a lot more powerful…, but we’ll see..
Then Sarah Sjostrom who, with her new coach, looks to me a lot more focused on the shorter distance (impressive her 50 free time in Luxembourg), so I think that, gaining power, also her 100 free could improve a lot northeless her relatively high rate per stroke.
Finally Simone Manuel, who improved a lot in Rio both in 50 and 100 free and I think that her performance curve is still… Read more »
Look at Manuel’s turn time compared to everybody else in the heat. Maybe all that short course racing was actually worth something after all.
Manuel’s turns are indeed very impressive. One has a chance to get convinced of that by watching her last race at 200y ( http://www.ledeckydaily.com/2017/02/26/race-videos-from-pac-12-championships/ ). But I wouldn’t jump into conclusion saying that that is the short course racing that made her an elite swimmer in long pool. Quite an opposite, I think. She took one year off of short racing before OG. But when she swam in college she was 53 high in LCM.
It is very hard actually to make accurate predictions about Simone Manuel. She is a puzzle. I can’t wait to see her at long course competition. The Olympic 100m race story was mostly about Campbell sisters being out… Read more »
I think people are forgetting that Simone was 53 low out of high school. She also broke the American yards record in the 100 free in high school, so she had been a world class swimmer for a few years before the Olympics. Like most 18-yr-olds, it probably took some time to adjust to living away from home her freshman year. The entire world just happened to see in Rio what those of us in Houston have seen for years. Simone is a heck of a racer.
Simone swam 53.2 in 2014 at PP. There was the only race prior Olympic season when she was under 53.5. I have great respect to those in Houston who watch Simone in progress, but i will be greatly surprised if you tell me that you foresaw the 52.7 coming based on Simone’s high school/college records. Besides Campbells, only Sjostrom and Heemskerk were faster by a few one hundreds.
Do you have any predictions of what is coming this season? As I told you it is not a simple task. She can surprise either way.