What's to blame for lack of world record swims at Paris Games?

The Olympic swimming in Paris provided plenty of dramatic finishes, but an odd trend has taken shape during the eight days of competition.

In the event finals, where competitors typically swim their fastest, there were only four world records broken.

That's the least in the post-bodysuit era — considered the years since 2010 when high-tech, full-body competition suits were banned in the wake of the 2008 Olympics. A whopping 19 world records fell in the event finals alone that summer in Beijing.

When it comes to world records falling in the swim event finals, the 2024 Paris Games rank last among those held since 2008. There were, however, 13 Olympic records broken at the finals in Paris.

• London 2012 - 19 total (eight WRs, 11 ORs)
• Rio de Janeiro 2016 - 14 total (seven WRs, seven ORs)
• Tokyo 2020 *moved to 2021 due to Covid* - 16 total (six WRs, 10 ORs)
• Paris 2024 - 17 total (four WRs, 13 ORs)

Could the pool have been to blame for such a lack of best-in-history swims? Ahead of the Paris Games, athletes were concerned with the shallow water depth at La Defense Arena and the potential "slowness" of the pool.

At just 2.15 meters deep, about seven and a half feet, the Paris pool was 31.5 inches shallower than the Tokyo venue in 2021.

Psychologically, swimmers believe depth affects how "fast" a pool feels and science actually backs that so-called superstition as fact.

The deeper a pool is, the "faster" it can be due to less water volume for waves to reflect off the bottom and cause surface turbulence in.

Kyle Sockwell, a former Bob Bowman swimmer at Arizona State and now a popular social media commentator on the sport, posted his in-person observations about the "wavy" pool and how it may have impacted swimmers' times.

However, former Australian swimmer and Olympic medalist James Magnussen instead laid the blame at the feet of Paris organizers and the conditions at the athletes' village, writing on July 30 "This Olympics is showing that it may be one of the toughest environments we’ve seen to produce world record swims."

He went on to claim that "the lack of world records boils down to this whole eco-friendly, carbon footprint, vegan-first mentality [at the Olympic Village] rather than [prioritizing] high performance."

Magnussen's assertions are much harder to prove and, regardless of the Olympic Village's viral unpopularity , are quite far-fetched.

But in the case of a shallow pool, organizers can't necessarily be blamed. They were limited to the available space and resources.

Given the arena's dimensions and original purpose, to host indoor rugby and concerts, it's probable there wasn't enough room to make the pool deeper relative to where the floor ended and the base for the artificial turf began.

Despite these architectural and engineering concerns, the Paris Games still delivered one of the most electrifying swimming competitions to date.