The Development and Prediction of Athletic Performance in Freestyle Swimming

Arkadiusz Stanula,Robert Roczniok,Adam Zając,Przemysław Pietraszewski,Adam Maszczyk,Marek Strzała,Andrzej Ostrowski

doi:10.2478/v10078-012-0027-3

Abstract

This paper analyses the dynamics of changes between the performances of elite freestyle swimmers recorded at particular Olympic Games. It also uses a set of chronologically ordered results to predict probable times of swimmers at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The analysis of past performances of freestyle swimmers and their prediction have revealed a number of interesting tendencies within separately examined results of men and women. Women’s results improve more dynamically compared with men’s. Moreover, the difference between women’s and men’s results is smaller, the longer the swimming distance. As both male and female athletes tend to compete more and more vigorously within their groups, the gap between the gold medallist and the last finisher in the final is constantly decreasing, which provides significant evidence that this sport discipline continues to develop.

Highlights

Competitive swimming performances have demonstrated consistent and significant improvement over the past 5 decades
Considering that the summer Olympic Games are the premier event on the international swimming calendar and that swimmers undertake training and competition in 4-year cycles, with the production of their best performance at the Olympics, their Olympic achievements provide a reliable indication of the development of this sport discipline
The men’s performance curve plotted in the graph clearly shows that the finalists’ results tend to concentrate, which follows from the rising level of athletic performance, as well as from the growing competition among elite sprint swimmers

Summary

Introduction

Competitive swimming performances have demonstrated consistent and significant improvement over the past 5 decades. A long-held view is that leading swimmers make progress in performance to swim the fastest at the Olympics compared with their earlier performances in the competition year (Arellano et al, 1994; Pyne et al, 2004; Trewin et al, 2004; Heazlewood 2006) It has encouraged a number of researchers to attempt to predict future performances by deriving and applying mathematical statistical models based on past performances in athletics (Pendergast, 1990; Heazlewood and Lackey 1996; Edelman-Nusser et al, 2002; Busso and Thomas 2006; Heazlewood, 2006; Silva et al, 2007; Anderson et al, 2008).

Methods

Results

Conclusion