Every year, swimming gets faster and faster, but at what point will swimmers reach their limit? Will we ever see a time that will never be beaten again? Eventually there has to be a limit as to how fast someone can swim across the pool, but how close are we to that limit in 2015?
It is hard to comprehend that someone could be two or three seconds faster than the current World Record in the men’s 50 freestyle, but it has happened time and time again. 31 years ago, Joe Bottom held the World Record in the men’s 50 freestyle with his time of 23.74. Today, his world record time from 1978, the fastest time ever swum at the time, is slower than the current women’s record (23.73, Britta Steffen) and almost three seconds slower than the current men’s world record (20.94, Cesar Cielo).
Despite the historical trend, there will be a point where it is impossible to get any faster. I can’t try to predict at what point that will be, but at some point in the future, it will happen. What we can measure, however, is how long it takes for the women’s times to catch up the to men’s times.
Thanks to an email from Jim Dannenberg, we looked through the history books to find out how long ago the current women’s world records would have stood as the men’s world record. To our surprise, it wasn’t that long ago that the best women in 2015 would have beat the top men in the world. As a community, we revere Olympic legend Mark Spitz and everything he accomplished, but currently, both the women’s 200 freestyle and the 200 butterfly world records are faster than Spitz’s former World Records. I am not trying to take anything away from Mark Spitz, but I am trying to bring attention to how much faster swimming has become for both men and women. On average, the lag time between the men’s World Records and the women’s World Records is only 38.4 years.
For our analysis, we took the current women’s world record, and then looked back through the World Record progression list to learn what year the current women’s world record would have stood as the men’s World Record. The men’s records listed below say “until” to represent the latest year that their time remained the World Record, rather than showing the year they became the World Record holder. Our analysis only compared long course meter times.
Below is a quick summary of the lag time between the men’s world records and the women’s world records:
- Shortest Lag Time: 31 Years, 50 Freestyle
- Longest Lag Time: 45 Years, 100 Butterfly
- AVG for All Events: 38.4 Years
- AVG for Freestyle Events: 37.5 Years
- AVG for Backstroke Events: 41 Years
- AVG for Breaststroke Events: 39.5 Years
- AVG for Butterfly Events: 41 Years
- AVG for IM Events: 35 Years
- AVG for 100m Distances: 41.25 Years
- AVG for 200m Distances: 37.6 Years
Click here to view SwimSwam’s Women’s World Record board, presented by Nike Swim.
Lag Time Between Men’s and Women’s World Records
50 Freestyle: 31 Years
- Joe Bottoms’s WR until 1978 – 23.74 to Britta Steffen’s WR in 2009 – 23.73
100 Freestyle: 39 Years
- Michael Wenden’s WR until 1970 – 52.20 to Britta Steffen’s WR in 2009 – 52.07
200 Freestyle: 37 Years
- Mark Spitz’s WR until 1972 – 1:53.50 to Federica Pellegrini’s WR in 2009 – 1:52.98
400 Freestyle: 41 Years
- Kurt Krumpholz’s WR unitl 1973 – 4:00.11 to Katie Ledecky’s WR in 2014 – 3:58.37
800 Freestyle: 39 Years
- Tim Shaw’s WR until 1975 – 8:13.68 to Katie Ledecky’s WR in 2014 – 8:11.00
1500 Freestyle: 39 Years
- Tim Shaw’s WR until 1975 – 15:31.85 to Katie Ledecky’s WR in 2014 – 15:28.36
100 Backstroke: 41 Years
- Roland Matthes’ WR unitl 1968 – 58.40 t0 Gemma Spofforth’s WR in 2009 – 58.12
200 Backstroke: 41 Years
- Roland Matthes’ WR until 1972 – 2:05.60 to Missy Franklin’s WR in 2012 – 2:04.06
100 Breaststroke: 40 Years
- John Hencken’s WR until 1973 – 1:04.35 t0 Ruta Meilutyte’s WR in 2013 – 1:04.35
200 Breaststroke: 39 Years
- David Wilkie’s WR until 1974 – 2:19.28 to Rikke Moller Pedersen’s WR in 2013 – 2:19.11
100 Butterfly: 45 Years
- Doug Russell’s WR until 1967 – 56.30 to Dana Vollmer’s WR in 2012 – 55.98
200 Butterfly: 37 Years
- Mark Spitz’s WR until 1972 – 2:01.87 to Liu Zige’s WR in 2009 – 2:01.81
200 IM: 34 Years
- Steve Furniss’ and David Wilkie’s WR until 1975 – 2:06.32 to Ariana Kukors WR in 2009 – 2:06.15
400 IM: 36 Years
- Andras Hargitay’s WR until 1976 – 4:28.89 to Ye Shiwen’s WR in 2012 – 4:28.43
It should be noted that today’s women’s swimsuits cover a larger area of their body than men’s. That must account for something. I know I’ll get downvotes for this …
Aswimfan cesar cielo competing as a woman will be epic. If a bunch load of men became transgender ala Bruce jenner and started competing as women then the women,s world records would catch up with the men faster. If the men(new transgender women) are world class swimmers like cielo,peaty and Phelps then the actual women(they are called cis women these days) will look like slow age groupers. The difference between the men,s and women,s world records in the 1500 meters freestyle has reduced due to ledecky but is still almost a minute. 14:31 to 15:28. I see a man going sub 14:30 in the near future. Maybe a 14:29.
I don’t think we will have to wait for women WR to finally catch up with men WR in the amount of a very long time as people are thinking of now.
All we have to wait for is an active male WR holder or active male worlds/Olympics champion to go the Bruce ALL THE WAY Jenner and get the gender reassignment surgery and then to go break women WR.
Just wondering, is there a FINA rule about how long a person is supposed to live life as a particular gender before they can break WR or participate in the Olympics or Worlds as that gender?
Can you imagine if Cielo decides to go Bruce Jenner this… Read more »
I think that is why there is a testotrone level limit..
But some athletes (Who are women) and have high testosterone are someting barred due to that..
Her testoterone level is too high to be a women, but still is incredibly low compared to a man..
The good news is that most of those differentials above are a 1.5 generations behind . That is the general span of a generation ( 25 years ) since the Industrial Age.
Now a generation is about 40 years in the west & so girls can be lagging only one generation , so a 50% lag time is coming up . As the various stats above show , itis all in the presentation .
Anyhow this is old hat , I I am really really waiting for how Google’s other 57 genders line up . Why is it only in sport & princesses / princes that we have only 2 ? .
Lean in .Move forward .
I am going to choose one of those genders so I can be a world record holder . – one where there is little competition & Imight hold all records .( maybe not the 200 fly ) .
This is kind of an irrelevant comparison as the rules for strokes have changes and thus you are not comparing apples to apples. How about you take a percentage comparison for all of the records from each decade… ie compare 1980 men vs 1980 women then compare 1990 then 2000…etc and look at the percent difference and not the absolute time.
Despite the title “Women are catching up” and mentioning “only 38.4 years”, the delay times are actually getting longer, as others already pointed out regarding Meyer and Evans.
“To our surprise, it wasn’t that long ago that the best women in 2015 would have beat the top men in the world.”
If anything, the current delays of nearly 4 decades are surprisingly long.
Women are catching up to men though, but in a different sense: the relative (and therefore also absolute) differences between the women’s and men’s records at a given time tend to decrease.
I think the leveling off will come very soon. Look at athletics (track and field), where Michael Johnson still holds world records from 15+ years ago. Aside from Usain Bolt, the records are dominated by athletes from the 1990s. And there are practically no sprint records in the past 5+ years.
Perhaps PED’s in the 90’s in track weren’t caught as well as they have been since? Ben Johnson’s Olympic fiasco was in 1988. Maybe the leveling off in track has more to do with better PED detection, screening, and enforcement. There’s also not much in the way of technological advancements and rule changes that can affect a 100 meter dash time.
Many of Track and Field WR are doping made… and some athletes have been caught and covered, or caught years later and the results are still valid. Also some sports changed a lot the apparatus which added to doping will make them impossible to be broken (Shot Put, Discus, Javelin)
On the women side it is ridiculous that Florence records are still “valid” Of all women running women records below 10 K the only ones I think are not doping are Jamila 800m, O’Sullivan 2000m and Dibaba 5000m. Also the 80s records of Russia, Germany and 90s records of China are probably doping too. Same for some of the relays (4×200 with Marion Jones, Russian 4×400)..
If we had to… Read more »
There is a limit to how fast a man can run. Records will probably be limited to the longer distances.
Everything needs to be taken into context. Spitz set world records in 1972 without using a swim cap (had relatively long hair) or googles, and he sported a mustache. He also didn’t have a speedo lzr racer swimsuit, or even a suit as good as many 10 year olds sport at swim meets these days. His drag was obviously significantly greater than today’s swimmers. Technology has also significantly improved the starting blocks and lane lines creating even lesser drag. If Spitz was born 40 years later and did the same workouts, his times would be much improved from his ’72 times just based on the improved technological changes. Let alone if he swam in ’08 with the full body suits.… Read more »
That’s swimming. How fast could Jesse Owens run now? He would get beat by 7- 8 yards today by a world class sprinter. Cinder tracks lousy shoes but still I wonder.