Sex Differences in Swimming Disciplines—Can Women Outperform Men in Swimming?

Abstract

In recent years, the interest of female dominance in long-distance swimming has grown where several newspaper articles have been published speculating about female performance and dominance—especially in open-water ultra-distance swimming. The aim of this narrative review is to review the scientific literature regarding the difference between the sexes for all swimming strokes (i.e., butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle and individual medley), different distances (i.e., from sprint to ultra-distances), extreme conditions (i.e., cold water), different ages and swimming integrated in multi-sports disciplines, such as triathlon, in various age groups and over calendar years. The influence of various physiological, psychological, anthropometrical and biomechanical aspects to potentially explain the female dominance was also discussed. The data bases Scopus and PUBMED were searched by April 2020 for the terms ’sex–difference–swimming’. Long-distance open-water swimmers and pool swimmers of different ages and performance levels were mainly investigated. In open-water long-distance swimming events of the ’Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming’ with the ’Catalina Channel Swim’, the ’English Channel Swim’ and the ’Manhattan Island Marathon Swim’, women were about 0.06 km/h faster than men. In master swimmers (i.e., age groups 25–29 to 90–94 years) competing in the FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation) World Championships in pool swimming in freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, individual medley and in 3000-m open-water swimming, women master swimmers appeared able to achieve similar performances as men in the oldest age groups (i.e., older than 75–80 years). In boys and girls aged 5–18 years—and listed in the all-time top 100 U.S. freestyle swimming performances from 50 m to 1500 m—the five fastest girls were faster than the five fastest boys until the age of ~10 years. After the age of 10 years, and until the age of 17 years, however, boys were increasingly faster than girls. Therefore, women tended to decrease the existing sex differences in specific age groups (i.e., younger than 10 years and older than 75–80 years) and swimming strokes in pool-swimming or even to overperform men in long-distance open-water swimming (distance of ~30 km), especially under extreme weather conditions (water colder than ~20 °C). Two main variables may explain why women can swim faster than men in open-water swimming events: (i) the long distance of around 30 km, (ii) and water colder than ~20 °C. Future studies may investigate more detailed (e.g., anthropometry) the very young (<10 years) and very old (>75–80 years) age groups in swimming

Monitoring Master Swimmers’ Performance and Active Drag Evolution along a Training Mesocycle

“…The performance times of the current study’s participants are lower than elite-level swimmers and highly trained master swimmers [ 4 , 8 ], which means that their technical skills could suffer a larger enhancement, and consequently, their performance has a great margin for improvement. Additionally, the current sample included both male and female swimmers, and this could have influenced the results as it is known that men swim faster than women, although there is a tendency for this gap to be reduced after the age of 30 [ 36 ].…”

Body Composition in International Sprint Swimmers: Are There Any Relations with Performance?

“…The results of the actual study showed us that body composition related to gender specificity characteristics should be considered much more in the future as one of important issues within swimming science [ 50 ] along with the known bio-physical determinants related to swimming as: hydrodynamics, kinematics, energetics, and kinetics characteristics [ 41 , 49 ], anthropo-morphological characteristics [ 13 , 19 , 35 , 47 ], strength, and power capabilities [ 20 , 37 , 42 , 45 ].…”

Variation in competition performance, number of races, and age: Long-term athlete development in elite female swimmers

“…social background, training modalities, and genetics [20,50]. With the reduced gender difference in performance throughout recent years [1,2], lower age of elite and peak performance in female swimmers [4,27], and previously emphasized need for comprehensive performance PLOS ONE evaluations and identification of success factors specific to elite female athletes [28,29], for the present study, all female swimmers competing in single events at the 2018EC were included. As potential gender effects may exist, future studies should investigate AVCP, number of races per year, and age in male swimmers.…”

“…During recent decades, improved performance of elite female athletes has narrowed the gap in performance to 8-12% compared to male athletes [1]. In swimming, depending on the discipline, the gender gap in performance is as low as 5% [1,2]. With the improved swimming performance and minimal gap between top swimmers [3], marginal differences distinguish between first and second place, such as at the 2018 European Long-Course Swimming Championships (2018EC), where the women's Freestyle final was won by only 0.01s and a 0.04% performance difference.…”

“…Improved swimming performance [3], minimal gap in performance between top swimmers [2], and plateauing of female elite performance during recent years has been reported [1]. As only 39% of study participants were women in three major sport sciences journals [28], previous research emphasized the need for comprehensive performance evaluations and identification of success factors specific to elite female athletes that are not solely derived from males [28,29].…”