No world records have ever been set in Olympic swimming, and no swimmer would have finished higher than eighth in the men’s 100m breaststroke final at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
Telegraph Sport looks at a strange phenomenon that has emerged at La Défense arena and why it could be due to the depth of the pool.
Is your swimming time slow?
Given the excellent water quality of the pool, advances in swimwear technology and the fact that the swimmers have spent the better part of the last four years peaking for this moment, the answer must be yes.
Take for example the 100m breaststroke, in which Adam Peaty won silver. We know he was swimming at a physical disadvantage and would soon test positive for COVID-19, but Peaty broke 58 seconds earlier this year, has a best time approaching 57 seconds and is currently struggling to break 59 seconds.
Eventual winner Nicolo Martinenghi won in a time that would have been enough for an Olympic title just two decades ago. Generational talents like Leon Marchand, who won an impressive gold medal in the 400m medley on Sunday, managed to break the Olympic record but fell just short of his own world record and fell far short of the four-minute barrier he thought was possible.
The same could be said for the previous night’s “Race of the Century” in the women’s 400-meter freestyle, in which Ariane Titmus beat Summer McIntosh and American stellar Katie Ledecky but was unable to improve on her own world record or beat Ledecky’s Olympic record.
An Olympic record was also set in the women’s 4x100m relay, but the winning times in most of the finals so far have been slower than at last year’s World Championships.
Why is it slow?
While various theories have been put forward for individual unfortunate moments, such as Petey’s illness, broader patterns suggest a more general problem.
Most agree that the problem inside La Défense arena lies with the pool itself and the depth used for the temporary facility. Olympic pools are usually three metres deep as they are also used for artistic swimming and diving. The Paris pool is dedicated to swimming only, and a separate aquatics centre is being built opposite the Stade de France. This allowed organisers to get much closer to World Aquatics’ minimum standard of two metres, deciding on a depth of 2.15 metres.
The technical impact for a swimmer is that a shallower pool means less water, and less water means the water bounces off the bottom faster, creating more waves and turbulence. This can be most important in breaststroke, where a greater range of movement in the water is required.