Amidst many of the world’s best swimmers having limited long course competitions in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, just three women made it under the 2:07 barrier in the 200m fly for the season.
All three come from China, with Zhang Yufei leading the pack with her powerful 2:05.49 at this month’s Chinese Long Course Invitational in Shijiazhuang City.
Knowing that it took a 2:06.78 for Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas to win the 2019 World Championships title, I wanted to take a big-picture look at the women’s 200m fly event as a whole over the last decade.
When I looked at the men’s 200m breast, for instance, the total number of men under the 2:09 barrier in the event progressively grew from 2 in 2010 to 10 in 2015 to 22 in 2019. This has not been the case in this women’s 200m fly event.
Eight of the top ten women’s 200m fly performers produced their best time more than 5 years ago. Of the top ten, Aussie Maddie Groves‘ 2:04.88 from the 2016 Olympic Games was the most recent, making her the world’s 9th fastest performer to date.
The most recent sub-2:06 times came in 2018, with Wales’ Alys Thomas striking a 2:05.45 at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, followed by the United States’ Hali Flickinger clocking 2:05.87 at that same year’s U.S. Nationals.
Liu Xige‘s World Record of 2:01.81 from 2009, albeit in a supersuit, has still proven to be untouchable, while Mary T. Meagher‘s 2:05.96 time from 1981 keeps her ranked as the 22nd fastest performer ever nearly 40 years later. There are very few events on both the women’s and men’s side with this type of longevity for its past performers.
I grabbed all the women’s LCM 200 butterfly times in the 2:04-, 2:05- and 2:06-ranges spanning 2010 and 2020 to take a look at how many more members of the pack entered new time brackets from year-to-year. What pops out from the data is that this event has largely remained stagnant in terms of any breakthrough times.
2013 represented the year with the most swimmers in the 2:04-range over the past decade, but just 3 swimmers made the grade. The last Olympic year of 2016 was the last time we saw double-digits’ worth of 200m flyers under the 2:07 threshold, with this number dropping off by more than half by the time 2018, 2019 and 2020 came about.
| Year | 2:04.XX | 2:05.XX | 2:06.XX | Total Swimmers Under 2:07 for the Year |
| 2010 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 2011 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| 2012 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 |
| 2013 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| 2014 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 2015 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
| 2016 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 |
| 2017 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| 2018 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 2019 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 2020 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
This article won’t theorize as to why the women’s 200m fly has been relatively progressing in a flat line over the past decade. We’ll leave that to you all to debate in the comments.
Honorable mention: Mary Descenza, who broke the world record in the 2009 World Championship – during prelims. Her 200 fly (2:04.14) has been the American record for 12 years, and is the 4th fastest of all time. No other American has gone under 2:05 yet, and since Meagher, Descenza has been the only American to hold the world record.
It’s been more than a decade but Misty Hyman’s 200 fly at Sydney was beautiful to watch.
Others have mentioned this before, but I would like to see Penny Oleksiak race the 200m butterfly at a tapered meet. In 2018, she swam an unrested 2:09 (LC) at the 55th Annual Mel Zajac Jr. International Meet. With a personal best of 56.46 in the 100m butterfly (LC), plus a best time of 1:56.41 in the 200m freestyle (LC)—not to mention splitting 1:54.36 (LC) on the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 2019 FINA World Championships—it seems that she has great potential in the event, but we have yet to see her swim it at her best.
Would be curious to see something similar done for the men’s 800. That and the women’s 200 fly are the two WRs by far the most bonkers and likely to last through the next decade, IMO. Finding a woman even capable of going a 2:03 low is going to be a monster task, let alone a 2:02 or 2:01.
And the men’s 800? Having to have a guy go 3:44/3:47 or 3:45/3:46? Split 56s for an entire 800? Maybe with the addition of the event at the Games it will become more competitive, but it’s still an INSANE mark.
Granted, the men’s 400 & 800 are both about equal in terms of the amount apart they are. Ledecky’s 3:56 in… Read more »
What’s even more insane about Zhang Lin’s swim is that he split 3:46.79/3:45.33…..
Those supersuits ruined the sport. The Men’s 200 free and Women’s 200 fly world records are insane. It will take a very talented swimmer, who is 7 feet 1 for the men and 6 feet 7 for the women to break it.
And please Retta can you keep doing those analyses for every event, chiefly those who are supersuited.
Also it will be interesting to know, what the human limit is. Can a male sprinter go 19,7 in a 50 free LCM in the future? Would like to know, if there is a study or research about it.
4 part series over those records but hasn’t been updated since just before 2019 worlds
https://staging2.swimswam.com/which-super-suited-records-can-be-broken-tier-4/
it’s strange that (and I don’t have all the data to back it up) most 200 butterfliers don’t focus solely on the 200 butterfly… – aside from the Chinese swimmers
Maybe that’s why.
“ Knowing that it took a 2:06.78 for Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas to win the 2019 World Championships title..,”
Simply unbelievable that Mary T’s time from 1981 would have won worlds in 2019.
Has any other event regressed as much as this one? Only other real contenders I could think of would be mens 2/4 frees
200 and 400 free haven’t regressed really, more or less stagnant. Sure, nobody’s matching Thorpe and Angel, today but that’s because they were gods. The field today is stronger on average by miles.