Is the Paris Olympic pool slow? The answer isnt that deep.

NANTERRE, France — A strange thing happened in the final of the women’s 400-meter freestyle Saturday night at the Paris Olympics, an event billed as a potential “Race of the Century” for the collection of swimming royalty that would be gathered across the eight lanes at Paris La Défense Arena: Only one of the finalists, the eventual fifth-place finisher, managed to lower her personal-best time — a stunning result at a meet for which all swimmers expend every ounce of energy trying to hit their peak.

The other seven women — a list that included the past three world record holders, Ariarne Titmus, Summer McIntosh and Katie Ledecky — finished an average of more than 1½ seconds behind their personal bests. A race that began with visions of a world record or even an Olympic record landed with something of a thud: Titmus beat McIntosh by nearly a second, both of them more than two seconds off their bests.

That head-scratching scenario has played out over and over across the first four nights of the Paris 2024 swim meet as a series of slower-than-expected winning times has focused attention on a possible culprit: the shallower-than-normal pool constructed atop the floor of an indoor stadium that typically hosts rugby team Racing 92.

Advertisement

NaN min

Podcast episode

Spotify

Apple

Google

Amazon

In the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, for example, the winning time of 59.03 seconds by Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi was the slowest in an Olympics since 2004 and would have been good enough for just eighth place three years ago at the Tokyo Games.

“It has to be a slow pool,” said Australian sprinter Kyle Chalmers, a seven-time Olympic medalist, with the most recent of those a relay silver Saturday night. That opinion has been echoed frequently during the Paris meet, and so has Chalmers’s kicker: “But … everyone has the same opportunity. Everyone has a lane, so we’re all swimming in the same pool.”

That the Paris pool is shallower than at past Olympics is indisputable. Built this spring, it is 2.15 meters (7 feet ¾ inches) deep, safely above the minimum of two meters but well shy of the standard three-meter depth of the past four Olympics and other international championships, as well as the U.S. Olympic trials.

Advertisement

There are several reasons for the change, including structural concerns at the stadium; the desire to avoid losing additional ticketed seating (the higher up you build the pool, the more rows of lower-bowl seats must be removed); and the fact that artistic swimming, which actually does require a depth of three meters, is at another venue.

“I know that people talk about the fact that if the pool is deeper, the performances are better,” Roberto Colletto, CEO of Italian company Myrtha Pools, which built the Paris pool, told French broadcaster RMC Sport. “But … on the technical side, there is no problem with the pool.”

The physics of moving water also are clear: Waves, such as those created by a diving, kicking, thrashing swimmer, emanate outward, and in a shallower pool those waves are quicker to bounce off the bottom and return to the surface, creating turbulence — or a “choppy” surface that is less conducive to world-class swimming.

Advertisement

Many observers have cited a spate of disappointing winning times to advance the “slow pool” theory.

Of the first 12 medal events contested here, nine saw the gold medal winner clock a slower time than in the corresponding race at last summer’s world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, the most recent international championship meet. Looking back to the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, six of the 12 Paris 2024 winning times have been slower, while five have been faster and one was a tie.

But the “slow pool” theory does not hold up as well when one looks beyond the winning times. In fact, it appears a bit, ahem, shallow.

When you consider the times it has taken to earn a spot in the finals in Paris — which is to say, the eighth-place times from either preliminary heats (in events 400 meters or longer) or semifinals — those times have been faster than in Fukuoka in 10 of the 12 events and faster than in Tokyo in five of 12. In the women’s 400 free, for example, it took a time of 4 minutes 3.83 seconds to make it into the final, faster than in Fukuoka (4:04.98) or Tokyo (4:04.07).

Advertisement

Almost as soon as the slow-pool theory started spreading around the Paris swim deck, the backlash kicked in. Rowdy Gaines, NBC’s swimming analyst and a three-time Olympic gold medalist, said he thinks the pool is “probably a little slow” but believes a bigger problem is the collective psychological effect of such talk, which becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Once the complaints start, it’s like wildfire, and an avalanche of negativity starts and you can’t stop this boulder [from] going down the mountain.” Gaines wrote in a text message. “I think a lot of it is much ado about nothing.”

That viewpoint was echoed by French distance freestyler David Aubry, who told RMC Sport: “It’s psychological. The first ones who swam don’t have exceptional times, so we think that the pool swims less quickly, but all the pools are the same. It’s an approved pool, [and] we’re at the Olympic Games, so I don’t believe it.”

Advertisement

Other athletes have pointed to additional, nonaquatic factors that could be having a negative effect on times, such as the highly scrutinized issues with accommodations, transportation and nutrition in the Olympic Village.

“Living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform,” Titmus said Sunday. “It’s definitely not made for high performance.” Her teammate Elijah Winnington agreed, telling Australian reporters: “There’s no pressure quite like the Olympics, but also the environment just doesn’t really permit for it. You’re walking way more in the village, the food’s not what you are normally used to, and the bus rides are longer.”

Whatever the reason, the nine-day Paris swim is through its fourth day having yet to produce a world record. By comparison, there were six set in Tokyo and a whopping eight in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. (However, it is also worth nothing that, because of the pandemic delay, swimmers had five years to prepare between Rio and Tokyo but only three between Tokyo and Paris.)

Advertisement

But does that really matter? Leave it to a 17-year-old, newly minted Olympic champion to set the record straight and remind everyone what’s important.

“The pool’s 50 meters. … It’s an Olympic pool,” Canada’s McIntosh, silver medalist behind Titmus in the women’s 400 free and gold medalist in the 400 IM, told reporters. “I don’t think any Olympic pool should really be called slow. No matter what, everybody’s racing in the same pool. Doesn’t matter if it’s the fastest pool in the world, slowest pool in the world — I have the same goals.”

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMCxu9GtqminnK66sbXCrGZraGJpfHGDjmxnaKiRp7a0ec6lsKaomZjAbr%2FLqK5mq6eeuq61zaBkqaefoXw%3D