What’s The Highest FINA Factors Swim Ever? The Reply Is not As Easy As It Sounds

Knowledge courtesy of Barry Revzin and Daniel Takata 

The final main worldwide competitors of the calendar 12 months—the 2024 Brief Course World Championships—noticed a bevy of world data damaged. And never simply damaged—data have been utterly smashed because the likes of Gretchen Walsh, Noe Ponti, and Luke Hobson rewrote the document e book.

Ponti scored 1061 factors within the males’s 50 butterfly remaining as a part of this document barrage, prompting a commenter to ask, “What’s the swim that’s scored essentially the most FINA factors?”

Because it seems, Ponti’s swim wasn’t even the best on the meet. Walsh’s 100 butterfly and 100 IM remaining swims earned 1078.2 factors. However the query remains to be worthwhile, even because it reveals a sophisticated train.

FINA factors—now known as Swimming Factors after the World Aquatics rebrand—evaluate outcomes throughout completely different occasions and swims in opposition to the present world document. Swims are valued in opposition to a base time outlined by World Aquatics yearly primarily based on essentially the most just lately ratified world document. The sooner a swim is in comparison with the bottom time, the extra factors the swimmer earns. (You possibly can learn extra in regards to the factors calculation system on the World Aquatics web site.)

Including one other diploma of problem is the truth that the deadlines for base instances resetting are August thirty first for short-course meters and December thirty first for long-course meters.

We don’t really know once they first began calculating FINA Factors swims, or when the present system was set, so all of that is primarily based on what the system is now, utilized to different years.

Simply monitoring lengthy and short-course meters swims, our knowledge consultants Barry Revzin and Daniel Takata—who’re chargeable for all of the numbers on this piece—remoted Claire Guttenstein’s 1910 long-course 100 freestyle world document efficiency because the swim that earned the best level whole in historical past; she earned 1320 factors bringing the world down from 1:35 to 1:26. Nonetheless, within the early 1900s, data fell extra simply and in greater chunks—thus, it was extra widespread to have a staggeringly excessive rating.

With that in thoughts, our numbers consultants set a number of deadlines. To provide data sufficient time to “settle” after the preliminary flurry that comes from establishing an occasion, they selected 1980 for the 50 freestyle and 1968 for all different occasions. Contemplating all occasions however blended relays, listed below are the highest 20 highest-earning swims.

Desk of Highest-Incomes Swims

Word: 1980 cut-off for 50 freestyle, 1986 for all different occasions. No blended relays.

One of many key issues to recollect with this desk is that the “base time” that units the system for what number of factors a swim earns solely resets yearly, not every time the world document will get damaged. That’s why, in February 1995, Angela Kennedy and Amy Van Dyken each earned such excessive scores within the occasion. In the beginning of the 12 months, the world document stood at 27.54 from 1990—then Van Dyken lowered it to 26.73. However the base time didn’t reset when Van Dyken lowered the world document, so when Kennedy took the document lower than two weeks later with a 26.56, her factors whole was greater than Van Dyken’s; her swim was measured in opposition to the preliminary world document, not Van Dyken’s swim.

Walsh’s world data within the 100 butterfly (52.71) and 100 IM (55.11) scored 1078.2 factors. These swims crack the highest 20 as a tie for sixteenth. Nonetheless, if this listing solely included swims from 2000 on, she’d rocket as much as seventh, showcasing how uncommon a efficiency like her meet in Budapest has change into.

Ulrike Richter, Cameron van der Burgh, and Ed Moses all make the listing twice. Richter and Moses’ swims are in the identical 12 months and the identical occasion—highlighting once more that some swims factors are as excessive as they’re due to once they have been swum, not essentially as a result of they demolished a world document. Nonetheless, Van der Burgh’s two entries are from the identical 12 months however completely different occasions. He annihilated the 50 and 100 breaststroke world data in August 2009, sporting a super-suit as he swam 25.43 within the 50 breaststroke and 55.99 within the 100 breaststroke.

Analyzing van der Burgh’s instances emphasizes one of many quirks within the swimming factors system talked about earlier—the deadlines. The bottom instances for short-course meters swims are recalculated on August thirty first. Van den Burgh went sooner than these instances later within the 12 months, swimming 25.25/55.61 in November.

Nonetheless, by November, the bottom time had reset to his normal from August, so the swims aren’t price as many factors. His 25.25 earned 1021 factors but when he’d swum it earlier than the August 31 cut-off, he would’ve earned 1113 factors.

These wrinkles spotlight the troublesome nature of this train. Our numbers consultants set their chosen deadlines to weed out time from the early twentieth century when swimmers hacked seconds off world data as they made easy enhancements that made dramatic variations. However, a desk with completely different deadlines would yield completely different outcomes—whether or not you determined to increase the vary to 1900 or restrict it to 2000.