Analysis: How Do NCAA Swimmers Race the 200s?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Kevin Donnelly, Swimming World College Intern.

At the NCAA level of swimming, swimmers can participate in thirteen different individual events. Some of these events can clearly be defined as sprint events; for example, the 50 free can take the best men no more than 19 seconds, and the women no more than 22 seconds. Some other events can clearly be defined as distance events, with the best men’s milers around 14 and a half minutes to complete their swim. Perhaps the most interesting of these races are the 200s; in particular the 200s of freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.

These four races are considered by many younger age group coaches to be long-distance races. USA Swimming intentionally doesn’t have time standards or records for the 200s of back, breast, and fly for 10 and under swimmers, because they are believed to be too young to effectively swim such a long race of a stroke other than freestyle. We commonly see 11-12 swimmers participating in these events for the first time swim them with the third 50 being the slowest, due to the adrenaline of the start of the race wearing off and fatigue setting in around the third 50, but the adrenaline of almost being done picking back up by the fourth 50.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

But what about at the college level? Swimmers at the collegiate level are more physically capable than younger swimmers and have the experience of numerous 200s of free and/or stroke, so they know what to expect and have developed strategies for them. How do NCAA swimmers swim the 200s of free and stroke?

Using data extrapolated from the 2017 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Championship Meets, I looked at the 200s for all four strokes for each of the top 16 finishers’ swims in the finals, and denoted which 50 they swam the slowest split. The following four tables will show a breakdown of each of the four strokes, with 32 data points (16 for the 16 men’s finalists and 16 for the women’s finalists) noted in each stroke. Take a look:

Freestyle:

First 50 Slowest	Second 50 Slowest	Third 50 Slowest	Fourth 50 Slowest
0	3	12*	18*

Note: Trevor Carroll (Louisville) split the same time (24.09) on both his third and fourth 50s in his 16th-place finish in the men’s 200 free.

Backstroke:

First 50 Slowest	Second 50 Slowest	Third 50 Slowest	Fourth 50 Slowest
0	3	13	16

Breaststroke:

First 50 Slowest	Second 50 Slowest	Third 50 Slowest	Fourth 50 Slowest
0	1	2	29

Butterfly:

First 50 Slowest	Second 50 Slowest	Third 50 Slowest	Fourth 50 Slowest
0	0	10	20

Note: Chase Kalisz (Georgia) and Remedy Rule (Texas) were disqualified in the 200 fly finals, so their swims are not included in this data set. Only 30 swims are represented on this table.

Analysis:

So how do NCAA swimmers swim the 200s? Not surprisingly, no swimmer swam their slowest 50 on the first 50 of their 200s. The benefit of a start as well as the adrenaline of starting a race carried every swimmer through the early parts of the 200 and ensured the first 50 was not the slowest for anyone.

Of the 127 data points found, only seven showed a swimmer who swam their slowest 50 on the second 50. Only 5.5 percent of swims had swimmers going their slowest split on the second 50. The most likely reason for this is due to the adrenaline of the first 50 continuing to carry swimmers on through the race.

Along with that, swimmers at the college level are likely taught to treat the 200s as a sprint, thus creating an extremely fast first 100 yards and a slower second 100. This is likely the cause of the majority of slower splits being done on the back half of the 200s.

The real interesting breakdowns are between the third and fourth 50s. In the freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly events, the tables show a moderate balance between the two 50s in terms of which is the slowest. In backstroke, we saw 16 people swam their slowest splits on the fourth 50, while 13 swam their slowest splits on the third. Meanwhile, in butterfly, we saw 20 swam their slowest splits on the fourth, with just ten swimming their slowest splits on the third.

In breaststroke, however, the balance is not there in the least. An overwhelming 29 of the 32 swimmers (90.6 percent) swam their fourth 50 the slowest, with just three swimmers swimming faster on the fourth than on another 50.

Why could this be? Since it is known breaststroke is naturally the slowest of the four strokes, it could be assumed the swimmers fatigue the most on breaststroke, thus causing them to run out of steam a bit near the end of the race much quicker than on backstroke or freestyle. The adrenaline of being just about done with the race likely isn’t there for breaststrokers at the end of a 200, because they have to swim the longest of the 200s of stroke and fatigue more than the swimmers of other strokes as a result.

Overall, 83 of the 127 data points, or 65.4 percent, showed the fourth 50 was the slowest 50 of the 200s of stroke; 37 of the 127, or 29.1 percent, found the third 50 to be the slowest; and 7 of the 127, or 5.5 percent, found the second 50 to be the slowest.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Conclusions:

At the NCAA level in the future, it should be expected that the majority of swimmers in the 200s of free, back, breast, and fly will swim their slowest 50s on the fourth 50 of their races.

This is especially true in breaststroke, where it is the rarest to see swimmers swim slower on another 50 other than the fourth. We can expect very few swims in the 200 breaststroke at the NCAA Championships to feature the slowest 50 on the second or third 50.

Finally, we can hypothesize that college coaches teach their 200 swimmers to swim the 200 as more of a sprint, due to the data showing the vast majority of swimmers swimming their slowest 50s in the latter half of their races.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

Name*

Email*

11 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Steve Roth

6 years ago

How it’s done, and how it should be done are sometimes different.

Steve Roth

6 years ago

Reply to Steve Roth

one of my better coached performances by a 14 yr. old girl.. splits: 27.21-28.89-29.18-28.87 – 1:54.15… Stroke Rates by 50: 67-68-68-66… DPS: 1.23-1.18-1.17-1.14 (meters per stroke)

Steve Roth

6 years ago

Reply to Steve Roth

this doesn’t resemble that displayed in the article…

John

6 years ago

Reply to Steve Roth

Maybe because your 14 year old girl doesn’t have the training background and/or muscular skeletal structure of a 20+ year old college swimmer. The article literally states that age group swimmers do it differently likely due to muscular differences that allow them to fatigue less (less muscle/size = less fatigue hypothetically) but also limits their opening speed (less muscle = size = less raw explosion the first and second 50).

Sarah Davison

6 years ago

Sarah Moore interesting ?

Sarah Moore

6 years ago

Reply to Sarah Davison

Really interesting – although not surprised last 50 slowest on 200 fly lol!

Nancy Umbright Bischoff

6 years ago

Samantha Bischoff

Gregory Hall

6 years ago

What separates the top 8 (A finalists) from the bottom 8 (B finalists) is how MUCH slower the 4th 50 is from the rest of the 50s. An analysis and comparison of that would also be a very interesting article.

Matthew Meals

6 years ago

I think this is more attributed to fatigue rather than adrenaline. I am a college swimmer and have never thought, “oh crap my adrenaline is running out” it has always been “I’m starting to get tired and this really hurts”. Also, the breast stroke 50s skew the other stroke percentages and probably shouldn’t be grouped with free, back and fly. 56.8% of swimmers swam their last 50 slower than the rest when breast isn’t accounted for, which is significantly different than 65.4%. In addition the other strokes skew the breaststroke percentage, 90.6 is way different then 65.4%.

Ashley Slayton

6 years ago

Jack Beachboard Shawn Cowper Daniels

Shawn Cowper Daniels

6 years ago

Reply to Ashley Slayton

Sprint