2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
- Open Water Swimming: August 8 – 9, 2024
- La Défense Arena — Paris, France
- LCM (50 meters)
- Meet Central
- Live Results
From a macro perspective, medals are the be-all and end-all in quantifying success at the Olympic Games, but we all know an athlete or nation can flourish even if it means they don’t ultimately make it onto the podium.
Thanks to Michael White, the head coach and CEO of Storm Aquatics in Wisconsin, we’re able to see how the standings in the 2024 Olympic pool swimming competition would look if we used the same scoring format we see at several domestic meets, including the NCAA Championships.
Scoring Format
- 16-place scoring system: 20-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
- Relays are worth double points
- 9th through 16th-place finishers come from semi-finals
- If a semi-finalist who missed the final was faster than someone in the final, that was corrected
WOMEN’S RANKINGS
| Rank | Country | Points |
| 1 | United States | 485.5 |
| 2 | Australia | 427.5 |
| 3 | China | 328 |
| 4 | Canada | 281 |
| 5 | Great Britain | 180 |
| 6 | France | 151 |
| 7 | Sweden | 123 |
| 8 | Japan | 114 |
| 9 | Italy | 107.5 |
| 10 | Germany | 105 |
| 11 | Netherlands | 99 |
| 12 | Brazil | 72 |
| 13 | Hungary | 71 |
| 14 | New Zealand | 70 |
| 15 | South Africa | 63 |
| 16 | Ireland | 53 |
| 17 | Hong Kong | 44 |
| 18 | Poland | 32 |
| 19 | Israel | 29 |
| 19 | Spain | 29 |
MEN’S RANKINGS
| Rank | Country | Points |
| 1 | United States | 354.5 |
| 2 | Australia | 282 |
| 3 | France | 273.5 |
| 4 | Italy | 248 |
| 5 | Great Britain | 241.5 |
| 6 | China | 226 |
| 7 | Germany | 210 |
| 8 | Hungary | 148 |
| 8 | Canada | 148 |
| 10 | Japan | 126 |
| 11 | South Korea | 79 |
| 12 | Netherlands | 75 |
| 12 | Greece | 75 |
| 14 | Poland | 57.5 |
| 15 | Switzerland | 55 |
| 15 | Ireland | 55 |
| 17 | Spain | 53 |
| 18 | Brazil | 45 |
| 19 | Israel | 40 |
| 20 | Tunisia | 37 |
COMBINED RANKINGS
| Rank | Country | Points |
| 1 | United States | 880 |
| 2 | Australia | 741.5 |
| 3 | China | 588 |
| 4 | Canada | 457 |
| 5 | France | 454.5 |
| 6 | Great Britain | 445.5 |
| 7 | Italy | 367.5 |
| 8 | Germany | 333 |
| 9 | Japan | 262 |
| 10 | Hungary | 219 |
| 11 | Netherlands | 200 |
| 12 | Sweden | 142 |
| 13 | Brazil | 119 |
| 14 | Ireland | 108 |
| 15 | Poland | 95.5 |
| 16 | South Africa | 89 |
| 17 | New Zealand | 86 |
| 18 | Greece | 85 |
| 18 | South Korea | 85 |
| 20 | Israel | 83 |
Takeaways:
- The United States and Australia are the clear 1-2 for women, men, and combined, which isn’t surprising. The Americans inched ahead of Australia in the medal table standings with their seventh and eighth gold medals on Day 9, but as a whole, have more depth than the Aussies with 10 more medals overall (28-18) and 138.5 more points in this scoring system.
- The U.S. may not have dominated like in past Olympics, especially on the men’s side, but there were only two events in the entire program where they had zero finalists: the men’s 100 and 200 fly. That number was nine for Australia.
- China was the third-best team overall, though a large portion of their success is due to the women, as the men ended up sixth in their ranking, though within 50 points of third-place France. The Chinese women managed to distance themselves from fourth-place Canada thanks to winning bronze in all three female relays behind the Australians and Americans. They also had a trio of bronze medals individually from Zhang Yufei.
- The dominance of Leon Marchand propelled the French men, but also got some late boosts with a 50 free bronze from Florent Manaudou, two finalists in the men’s 1500 free, and a bronze from the men’s medley relay.
- The performance from the Canadian women, led by Summer McIntosh, helped Canada hold off France and Great Britain in the race for fourth in the overall standings. The Canadian men also had a late surge in the meet with Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun snagging medals in the 100 fly.
- Germany sat up in fifth overall after Day 5, but faded to eighth after being overtaken by Canada, France and Great Britain.
- Hungary and Japan maintained their spots in the top 10, while the Netherlands and Sweden held onto 11th and 12th, respectively, the same spots they were in midway through the meet. Kasia Wasick‘s fifth-place finish in the women’s 50 free helped bump Poland up into 15th after they were sitting 17th after Day 5.
If I am calculating correctly, the mixed medley was only factored into the combined team standings. It looks like the men’s team score for USA and women’s team score for USA adds up to 840 points, so then an additional 40 points is added to the joint team score for the gold in the mixed relay. That seems like the sensible way to do it.
I thought the World Aquatics established a points system to award team of the meet?
I don’t think they award that at the Olympics. I haven’t seen any info or mention of it.
So Canada is basically NC State.
There are probably too many variables and too much data, but I think it would be interesting to know what a hypothetical meet like this would look like if it were even more similar to NCAAs where swimmers qualify based on rankings and teams select who gets to go based on who has the best chance of scoring. Rather than selecting 2 per event, select the swimmers with the highest world rankings and the best chance at a medal.
So perfectly on brand that you couldn’t just say Wendy’s.
Would love to see this scored out day by day so we can imagine what the meet would feel like with its ups and downs
Didn’t World Aquatics (FINA at the time) implement a depth scoring system to determine the World Champions Trophy? Does that scoring system and trophy no longer exist?
Speaking of NCAAs, only 226 days until the women’s championship meet starts.