Postlockdown Performance in French Swimming Championships

Abstract

Purpose: To measure the proportion of French swimmers that progressed, stagnated, or regressed during the 2020 national championship compared with previous ones. Method: Individual best performances were collected at the French national championships from 2000 to 2020. Yearly proportions of swimmers who improved, stagnated, or regressed in performances were compared with their previous performances. Results: In 2020, the proportion of swimmers with performance regression has significantly increased (33% vs 17% in 2019). Women showed a higher proportion of performance regression (41%) than men (26%, P < .0001) in 2020. Only 39% of women and 53% of men experienced progression in 2020 (vs 60.8% [3.7%] and 66.7% [5.2%], respectively, in the previous years). Only the 2008 and 2009 championships showed a regression proportion that did not increase with age. The 2010 championship (the year of swimsuits ban) showed a higher proportion of regressing athletes than these previous years. Long-distance events showed higher proportion of performance regression (36.2% [0.5%]) for 400-, 800-, and 1500-m races than for short-distance ones (32.1% [3.2%]; 50-, 100-, and 200-m events). Breaststroke events showed higher regression (42.4%) than other styles (30.5% [2.1%]). Younger swimmers more often improved their performance than older ones (61.9% [8.5%] for swimmers less than 18 y of age vs 20.0% [10.8%] for those 25 y and older). Conclusion: A high proportion of swimmers experienced performance regression during the 2020 French national championships. A higher impact was observed among female, long-distance, and breaststroke swimmers. Eight weeks of lockdown without training may have led to poorer swimming performances.

Measuring the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Elite Swimming Performance

“…This evidence supports our decision to fail to reject the Everybody-Was-Impacted Hypothesis with the forecasted data. These findings are consistent with Miguens et al (2022), which used a panel dataset to compare the probability of improvement or regression in French swimming from 2000-2020. In the 2020 national championships, a higher proportion of distance swimmers and breaststrokers regressed due to lockdowns during the pandemic.…”

“…It is related to previous research in sports economics that reached conclusions based on data from surveys, like Lee and Park (2010), which studied physical activity and happiness in South Korea. Finally, this study joins Haddad et al (2021) and Miguens et al (2022) in studying how the pandemic affected swimming performances, and previous works such as Harris (2020) and McFall et al (2020), which studied the sport of swimming or elite swimming performance.…”

Swimming at the Time of COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study among Young Italian Competitive Athletes

“…Some studies performed in other countries have shown that the pandemic influenced swimming performance in competitive athletes. In particular, a performance regression was registered during the 2020 French national championships, after eight weeks of lockdown without training, mainly among females, long-distance, and breaststroke swimmers [ 26 ]; the analysis of data points from Poland, Spain, Russia, Turkey, and Denmark championships from 2019 to 2020 showed improvements in symmetrical techniques, i.e., breaststroke and butterfly [ 27 ]; a performance analysis carried out on a collegiate USA swimming team between the 2020–2021 and 2019–2020 seasons highlighted significant reductions in swim training volume, with sprinters performing better and long-distance swimmers performing worse at the regional championships [ 20 ]; and a performance time deterioration in the 200, 300, and 400 m was found in Greek swimmers after an 11-week lockdown, while no changes were detected in 4 × 50 m and 50 m tests [ 28 ]. These findings suggest that the pandemic caused significant abstention from swimming and a reduction in training volume, leading to reduced aerobic fitness and impaired technical ability; when adopted, dryland training allowed the athletes to maintain strength and to preserve their sprint ability.…”