The French Swimming Federation (Fédération Française de Natation) recently released a booklet with data analysis on every event at the Paris Olympics. This data-rich guide lists information like swimmers’ 25-meter splits, time spent underwater, total strokes, and more in a table with a breakdown of each finalist’s information. Over the next few days, I’ll be picking some of my favorite events from the Olympics and analyzing the data from the fastest swimmers in the world.

This data goldmine, entirely in French, consists of four distinct sections: Round (divisions), Nagées parties (swam parts of the race), Parties without nagées (Parts of the race that are not swum, including start, underwater and finish) and Movements (Total number of strokes and so on).

REVIEW

The rivalry between Kaylee McKeown And Regan Smith was provisionally decided at this year’s Olympics, with McKeown defending her 2021 title and winning with a time of 57.33. Smith, who took second place with a time of 57.66, is still the world record holder with a best time of 57.13 seconds. Katharina Berkoff secured a spot on the podium by breaking the one-minute barrier and swimming a time of 57.98 to take home bronze. This race was one of the few in Olympic history to feature only four swimmers, as Australia, the United States, Canada and France all sent their swimmers to the final. The swimmers finished the race as follows:

1. Kaylee McKeownAustralia – 57.33
2. Regan SmithUnited States – 57.66
3. Katharina BerkoffUnited States – 57.98
4. Kylie MasseCanada – 58.29
5. Iona Anderson, Australia – 58.98
6. Ingrid Wilm, Canada – 59.25
7. Emma Terebo, France – 59.40
8. Beryl GastaldelloFrance – 59.80

ROUND (SPLIT)

Opening 50:

1. Smith/Mass – 28.02
2. .
3. Berkoff – 28.05
4. McKeown – 28.08
5. Anderson – 28.47
6. William – 28.69
7. Terebo.- 28,79
8. Gastaldello – 28,80

Graduation 50:

1. McKeown – 29.25
2. Smith – 29.64
3. Berkoff – 29.93
4. Mass – 30.27
5. Anderson-30.51
6. William – 30.56
7. Terebo – 30.61
8. Gastaldello – 31.00

Most of these rankings appear to have two distinct groups of swimmers, with McKeown, Smith, Berkoff, and Masse (swimmers who finished 1st through 4th) in the first group and Anderson, Wilm, Terebo, and Gastaldello (5th through 8th) in the second group. The first group all finished within one second (McKeown at 57.33, Masse at 58.29), as did the second group (Anderson at 58.98, Gastaldello at 59.80). In the first group, the swimmers all somersaulted at virtually the same time, within 0.06 seconds of each other, but McKeown pulled away in the second 50 meters to win the race. The times in the second 50 meters matched the final race order exactly.

Smith’s first 50m was about the same level as when she broke the world record (27.94), but she didn’t have the same speed in the second half that we saw from her in the US Olympic qualifiers in June.

PARTIES NAGEES (PARTS OF THE RACE SWAM)

This section lists swimmers’ times from 15m to 45m, as well as their times from 65m to 95m, taking into account everything except the start, turn and finish. The ranking below shows their total time spent “swimming.”

1. McKeown – 36.81
2. Blacksmith – 37.20
3. Anderson-37.34
4. Mass – 37.36
5. Berkoff – 37.39
6. Terebo – 37.44
7. William – 37.73
8. Gastaldello – 38.44

In general, this part of the analysis reflects the order of the swimmers without many surprises. The swimmers who have the best “swimming” and “non-swimming” times combined are the ones who win the races. If Kaylee McKeownThe time of was about 0.40 seconds faster than Regan Smith During the 60 meters of the race, Smith finds it difficult to catch up due to underwater jumps and turns.

PARTIES NOT NAGEES (PARTS OF THE RACE NOT TO SWIM)

This section highlights the start, turn and finish of the race, including reaction times, time spent underwater, distance covered underwater, time to reach the 15m mark, finishing time for 5m mark and distance from the last stroke to the wall. The following leaderboard is the total time from start to 15m, 45-65m and 95m to the wall (measured in seconds).

1. Blacksmith – 20.46
2. McKeown – 20.52
3. Berkoff – 20.59
4. Mass – 20.93
5. Gastaldello – 21.36
6. William – 21.52
7. Anderson – 21.64
8. Terebo – 21.96

McKeown, Smith and Berkoff competed well in both the swim and the extra sections of the race. The section where they seemed to pull away from the rest of the field and earn their spots on the podium was in their starts, turns and underwater efforts. The difference between first and eighth place was about the same in both this section and the “swim” section, but the distribution was much more segmented in the “non-swim” section. The podium finishers were huddled together, with mass close behind them, which seemed to be the difference that separated them from the rest of the field.

Total distance swum underwater (measured in meters):

1. Blacksmith – 30.2
2. Berkoff – 28.9
3. William – 27.9
4. McKeown – 27.7
5. Gastaldello – 26.8
6. Mass – 26.7
7. Anderson-25.8
8. Terebo – 24.0

The American influence is also evident in this part of the analysis. Smith and Berkoff both had the best underwater performances in the field, largely due to their success in the SCY swim.

Distance and time from the last hit into the wall:

1. Anderson – 0.21 meters, 0.13 seconds
2. Wilm – 0.28 meters, 0.17 seconds
3. Terebo – 0.54 meters, 0.33 seconds
4. Smith – 0.56 meters, 0.34 seconds
5. McKeown – 0.64 meters, 0.38 seconds
6. Gastaldello – 0.75 meters, 0.46 seconds
7. Mass – 0.83 meters, 0.51 seconds
8. Berkoff – 1.27 meters, 0.80 seconds

Each swimmer finishes their backstroke in a different way. Some swim much closer to the wall, others dive back down to finish their race. Ingrid Wilm and Iona Anderson both came very close to the wall before making their final strokes, while Katharina Berkoff was further out when she made her final shot, diving 4 feet from the wall and finishing with a powerful kick. Smith and McKeown seemed to prefer the middle option, closer to the wall than Berkoff but with more glide than Anderson and Wilm.

MOVEMENTS (STROKE)

In this final section, the total number of strokes each swimmer completed during the race was modeled. The following ranking shows the number of strokes from most to fewest.

1. Berkoff/Anderson – 77
2. .
3. Smith/Terebo/Gastaldello – 76
4. .
5. .
6. Mass – 75
7. McKeown – 70
8. William – 66

Distance per stroke (from largest to smallest):

1. Wilm – 1,092 meters per stroke
2. McKeown – 1,033 meters per stroke
3. Terebo – 1,000 meters per stroke
4. Gastaldello – 0.963 meters per shot
5. Mass – 0.977 meters per stroke
6. Anderson – 0.964 meters per stroke
7. Berkoff – 0.923 meters per stroke
8. Smith – 0.918 meters per stroke

Smith and Berkoff’s higher stroke/fewer yards per stroke race plan, as opposed to McKeown’s lower stroke/more yards per stroke, again shows that there are multiple paths to the podium. Ingrid Wilm, with an impressively low 66 strokes, was sandwiched (both in the lane and in the rankings) between Anderson and Terebo, both of whom needed at least 10 more strokes.

Unfortunately, this data does not take cadence into account, probably because it is much harder to accurately determine the exact cadence of each swimmer. From the race footage alone, it is clear that Smith and Berkoff generate much more whitewater than Terebo and Wilm.

The previous data breakdowns can be found in the following articles:

The full breakdown can be found in the brochure here.