A big thanks to WSCA for compiling the numbers we used in this report.
The 2015 FINA World Championships are behind us, but the World Swimming Coaches Association has compiled some data that make for an interesting look-back at the World Championships that were.
We’ll be combing through the data more this week, but one interesting ‘first look’ deals with how well each continental swimming federation was represented at each level of competition.
Below, we’ve put together an interactive chart showing the composition – by continent – of the heats, semifinals and finals of all combined pool swimming events at Worlds.
Clicking on various piece of the chart will highlight different data points. Most useful here: clicking on any continent in the legend at the top will highlight that continent in all of the charts and graphs below.
Mobile viewers might want to check out the full chart in its own tab. You can find it by following this link.
The continents are broken up as follows:
- Africa
- Americas (North & South, which share UANA as a continental federation)
- Asia
- Europe
- Oceania (Australia, New Zealand & other Oceanic nations)
While it’s interesting to note how much European representation dominated the composition at all three levels, it’s also worth noting that Europe also had the most individual nations competing with 51. That accounts for about 27.7% of the total number of nations competing.
Even still, Europe was represented in finals and semifinals at percentages much higher than that, displaying their relative dominance as a continent.
A quick chart of how many nations each continent had competing in Kazan:
| Continent | Number of Nations | Percent of Total |
| Africa | 42 | 22.8% |
| Americas | 38 | 20.7% |
| Asia | 41 | 22.3% |
| Europe | 51 | 27.7% |
| Oceania | 12 | 6.5% |
And one more table, showing how many swims each continent had in prelims, semifinals and finals per nation under their banner:
| Continent | Prelims swims per nation | Semis swims per nation | Finals Swims per nation |
| Europe | 18.9 | 4.3 | 3.3 |
| Oceania | 12.6 | 3.2 | 2.7 |
| Americas | 12.6 | 2.3 | 2.1 |
| Asia | 11.6 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
| Africa | 5.8 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
A few interesting notes:
- No one did more with less than Oceania. Despite entering with a third as many nations as the next-smallest continents, Oceania managed the second-most finals and semifinals swims per country. Much of that comes from the strong swimming tradition in Australia, easily the most competitive Oceanic nation.
- It was a rough meet for Asia as a whole, at least by these measures. Asia and the Americas entered roughly the same amount of nations and the same amount of prelims swims. But the combined Americas came up with 30 more semifinal swims and 28 more finals appearances.
- It’s no secret that Africa is not as well-developed as a swimming continent as Europe, for example, and Africa’s meager 7 finals swims (5 of them from the South African combination of Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh) is evidence of that. But there is evidence that development is happening. Africa swam 245 times in prelims, with entries from 42 different nations. It’ll take time for Africa to become relatively competitive at the finals level, but African nations are beginning to field World Championship-qualifying teams, a big first step in the process. (A more full South African roster would probably boost these numbers some, too).
- Collectively, Europe filled nearly half the total finals slots, and more than half the semifinal lanes. Even with their vast advantage in roster size (Europe had twice as many prelims swims as any other continent), those performances are net gains from their prelims representation, which was just over 40%.
What continents were Turkey and Russia assigned to? They are technically in both continents and I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy to figure out which swimmers should be listed with what continent.
Both continents meaning Europe and Asia, of course
Good question, JI – Turkey and Russia are both part of LEN, the European Swimming Federation. This data was originally compiled by WSCA, so I can’t say for sure, but it looks like they categorized all nations based on which continental federation they are a part of (LEN for Europe, AASF for Asia, UANA for the Americas, OSA for Oceania and CANA for Africa).
I know there are only five Olympic rings (which do NOT represent continents, FYI), but North and South America are obviously different continents! Especially in light of the fact that we’re approaching the very first Olympic games to be held in S. America, doesn’t it make sense to evaluate the strength of our sport there by honoring its athletes with recognition separate from N. America?
Is there going to be a Duel in the Pool Europe vs USA competition this year?
northern sue – yes, it’s being held in December in Indianapolis.
Good Point!!
In part this result simply reflects that Europe is divided into many smaller nations while the US groups all states as one. Imagine if California, Texas, Florida, could each compete as a nation – with 2 swimmers per state – the North America totals would rise.
Or even just breaking down into 8 groups- each existing Zone cut in half…
We’d be able to match the European totals by being able to bring our 16 best in each event.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the European nations athlete totals are in comparison to USA Swimming? As in from 6 year olds to elites? I know Europe has more people in general but what’s their ‘swimming population’?