You are working on Staging1

Were The Women’s Olympic Qualifying Times Harder Than The Men’s? Looking At The Numbers

With the entry lists for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games being revealed by World Aquatics, we now know who and how many athletes will be appearing in the swimming events.

The qualification criteria were designed so that the quota of 852 athletes had been targeted. The requirements are: Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT, or “A” cut), relay-only swimmers, Universality places and Olympic Consideration Time (OCQ, or “B” cut).

Since the first time women were admitted to Olympic swimming, in 1912, the female participation rate has been increasing over the years. In Paris, it was expected that the percentage of men and women would be equal, thus achieving the much-desired 50% equity stake.

It has been revealed that 854 athletes will be competing in pool swimming events in Paris, two more than the original quota.

We cannot say the same about the 50% equity stake, however. There will be 463 male swimmers and 391 female swimmers in Paris. The women’s rate of participation will be 45.8%, 0.3% higher than Tokyo three years ago, but lower than Rio 2016 and London 2012.

Women’s rate of participation in Olympic swimming

Year City Total Women Men % Women
1912 Stockholm 120 27 93 22.5%
1920 Antwerp 116 24 92 20.7%
1924 Paris 169 51 118 30.2%
1928 Amsterdam 182 72 110 39.6%
1932 Los Angeles 128 44 84 34.4%
1936 Berlin 248 94 154 37.9%
1948 London 249 88 161 35.3%
1952 Helsinki 319 118 201 37.0%
1956 Melbourne 235 99 136 42.1%
1960 Rome 380 144 236 37.9%
1964 Tokyo 405 162 243 40.0%
1968 Mexico City 468 204 264 43.6%
1972 Munich 532 245 287 46.1%
1976 Montreal 471 208 263 44.2%
1980 Moscow 333 143 190 42.9%
1984 Los Angeles 494 186 308 37.7%
1988 Seoul 633 252 381 39.8%
1992 Barcelona 641 256 385 39.9%
1996 Atlanta 762 345 417 45.3%
2000 Sydney 954 396 558 41.5%
2004 Athens 937 393 544 41.9%
2008 Beijing 980 433 547 44.2%
2012 London 887 429 458 48.4%
2016 Rio 897 414 483 46.2%
2021 Tokyo 875 398 477 45.5%
2024 Paris 854 391 463 45.8%

As theoretically the qualification times have the same difficulty levels for all events and there is no privilege towards men in the selection of relay-only and Universality athletes, what explains there being 8.4% more male than female swimmers in Paris?

A stat can help explain. When looking only at swimmers who reached the OQT, or ‘A’ cut, there is a notable difference between women and men. In men’s events, there are 350 entry times under the OQT (247 unique swimmers). In the women’s events, there are only 259 (175 unique swimmers).

The table below shows the number of entries under the OQT by event.

Number of entries under the OQT by event

Event Women Men
50 freestyle 24 40
100 freestyle 14 32
200 freestyle 16 21
400 freestyle 19 23
800 freestyle 11 30
1500 freestyle 14 24
100 backstroke 20 30
200 backstroke 26 27
100 breaststroke 23 21
200 breaststroke 16 18
100 butterfly 24 29
200 butterfly 14 23
200 IM 23 16
400 IM 15 16

In every event but two (100 breaststroke and 200 IM), there are more entries under the OQT on the men’s side than on the women’s side. Some differences are notable, especially in the 100 freestyle (14 women versus 32 men) and the 800 freestyle (11 women versus 30 men).

In this article, this trend already existed. In the comparison made at the time, on May 31, there were 346 potential entries under the OQT on the men’s side (considering two swimmers per country), and 267 potential entries on the women’s side.

The OQTs correspond to the time achieved by the 14th-place swimmer in the prelims at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. If the 14th-place swimmer in Tokyo was slower than the established OQT at the time, the qualifying time for Tokyo remains intact (established from the 14th-place time at Rio 2016).

In that article, we pointed out that this has not made the OQTs the same level of difficulty across the events. Now, it seems that the OQTs are in fact more difficult to achieve in women’s events than in men’s events.

Also, in that article, we argued that there are better ways to design time standards so that the number of swimmers below a given time standard is quite even in different events. This is also valid so the OQTs can become more even among women and men. Only this way, we can expect to achieve the desired 50% equity stake among women and men in swimming.

15
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

15 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
green
3 months ago

What if you don’t consider 2 swimmers per country? Is it possible women are just more concentrated in certain countries than the men are? You could look at where that 14th place time falls in world rankings, ignoring country and see if the count is more balanced.

I realize this doesn’t actually change the equity, but it would be a more accurate way of assessing difficulty.

Weinstein-Smith-Ledecky-Sims
Reply to  green
3 months ago

The data would most likely reveal greater representation from Europe, North America (Canada, United States of America), Asia (China, Japan), Oceania (Australia, New Zealand) than Central America, South America, Africa.

Boknows34
Reply to  green
3 months ago

Indeed. Perhaps men’s swimming is more geographically diverse and the depth in women’s swimming revolves around fewer countries with the USA and Australia particularly dominant when you look at the overall world rankings.

SwimStats
Reply to  green
3 months ago

So I know I’m a bit late to the party but I’ve done a preliminary check of the stats.

Looking at only Australia, US, China and Great Britain as the “bigger” countries (the top 3 on the medal table from Fukuoka plus GB who were in 5th with France left out):

When considering the top 14 qualifiers for Paris (as per World Aquatics) you get the following:
63% of women in the top 14 are from these four countries compared to 41% of men. Another way to put it is that 43 top 14 entries were lost on the women’s side due to the 2 per country rule as opposed to 29 for men.

Weinstein-Smith-Ledecky-Sims
3 months ago

The heats were at night at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics which definitely had an effect on the times. For example, Katie Ledecky swam faster in the heats (15:35.35) of the W 1500 FR than the final (15:37.34).

Weinstein-Smith-Ledecky-Sims
3 months ago

At the age of 27, Katie Ledecky would have been faster in the final of the W 800 FR at the 2024 Olympic Team Trials if she didn’t overcook herself in the heats of the W 1500 FR and W 800 FR. In addition, no one (media/pundits) is demanding that Katie Ledecky post a Top 25 All-Time Performance in the heats (15:39.73) of the W 1500 FR. Is the sight of Lotte Friis in the Top 25 All-Time Performance list driving her mad? A classic case of “can’t see the forest for the trees”.

CanSwimFan
3 months ago

Is the advantage of establishing OQTs, versus just guaranteeing places for the top 24 in the world (limit two per country) during a certain time period, just that less work / record-keeping is necessary?

Khachaturian
3 months ago

Does this mean prelims for the 200 IM are meaningless? Just need to go fast in semis?

Daniel Takata
Reply to  Khachaturian
3 months ago

No. There are 25 entries in the men’s 200 IM (OQT swimmers, OCT swimmers and Universality swimmers). This article is about the number of entry times under the OQT, which is 16 in this particular event.

Boknows34
Reply to  Khachaturian
3 months ago

The closest we’ll get to a meaningless prelims is the W200 fly as there are 19 athletes in total, 14 with OQT, three with OCT and two on a Universality entry time.

ScovaNotiaSwimmer
3 months ago

There’s very likely socio-cultural/economic/political/religious reasons for why there are more men than women that aren’t tied to the qualifying times.

Thomas The Tank Engine
Reply to  ScovaNotiaSwimmer
3 months ago

Yup yup yup

SwimStats
Reply to  ScovaNotiaSwimmer
3 months ago

My thoughts exactly.

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

Read More »