Viewers of the 2024 Summer Olympics have been caught off guard by the surprisingly slow finish times in the swimming competitions.
The legendary Michael Phelps may be long retired, and no active swimmer will put on the clinics he performed at the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 games. Still, some of the world’s top swimmers have disappointed with their finish times at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
As Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports noted, the eight swimmers in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke final all finished with times that wouldn’t place them “better than eighth at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.”
To put it into perspective, Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi won the 100-meter breaststroke final with a time of 59.03 seconds. Three years ago, American Caeleb Dressel won gold with a time of 47.02 seconds, and eighth-place finisher Nándor Németh of Hungary finished a 48.10 seconds.
Given how much slower the swimmers have been at the 2024 Summer Olympics compared to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, some viewers think the explanation is simple…that there’s a “slow pool” conspiracy theory:
