Team USA “slow pool” complaints mocked by former Olympics swimmer

Swimming is one of the Olympic events where we usually see new tournament records being set. At Tokyo 2020, a total of 18 new Olympic records were set (10 in the women’s and eight in the men’s) and of the 35 separate swimming events, the longest-standing Olympic record dates back to Beijing 2008.

Where are the swimming records in Paris?

Five days into the Paris Games and we have yet to see any new world records set in the pool at La Défense Arena - in fact we have only seen three new Olympic records. Australia’s Kaylee McKeown shaved a few tenths of a second off her own women’s 100-meter backstroke record, taking it down to 57.33 seconds from the previous best, 57.47 set at the Tokyo Games. Gretchen Walsh sliced 0.1 second off Sarah Sjostrom’s Women’s 100m Butterfly OR sets eight years ago in Rio while Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen took a more sizable chunk out of Mykhailo Romanchuk’s men’s 800-meter freestyle OR, resetting it to 7:38.19 from 7:41.28.

Team USA’s complaints about Paris’ “slow” swimming pool

We saw a number of new swimming world records set in Team USA’s Olympic trials earlier this year so why aren’t we seeing records falling in Paris? A few theories have come to light - and many complaints about the pool from the swimmers themselves.

American coach Bob Bowman, who coached 23-times gold medallist Michael Phelps said his swimmers noticed a major difference. “They’ve noticed that it’s shallower, which it is, because particularly a lot of my swimmers are underwater. So it looks different because they’re closer to the bottom,” he said. “It’ll have to be a significant swim, though. Because if you’re looking at the average times, a world record here would be very outstanding”.

Is the 2024 Paris pool too shallow?

Comments which drew a response from James Magnussen, silver medalist for Australia in 2012 and bronze medals in the team relay events in at London and Rio. “We’ve heard a lot of complaints about this pool, and I must say, most of them have come from our friends from America,” told Fox Sports’ Matty & the Missile podcast.

“They’re not happy with the depth of the pool, they’re saying there’s too many cameras in the pool which is causing waves for the swimmers. Is that a coincidence that they’ve only got two medals and they’re complaining about the pool depth? You be the judge,” the former swimmer asked.

The temporary pool at the La Défense Arena has a depth of 2.15 meters - below the minimum depth of 2.5 metres recommended by World Aquatics. Ideally, Olympic swimming events should take place in pools with a depth of 3 meters. One argument is that a shallow pool has a direct effect on water displacement and the force exerted by swimmers as they propel themselves forward.

Deeper pools mean calmer waters, which reduces resistance for swimmers - hence they can glide through the water quicker. So what are the chances we will see any swimming world records broken in Paris? It’s not impossible - Kaylee McKeown and Gretchen Walsh have already come close but maybe we won’t get a see a repeat of Tokyo 2020 when six new world records were recorded.