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How are swimmers assigned lanes in competitive swimming?

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If you read the lane assignments vertically, you'll see the top 3 swimmers (a, b, and c) are all in lane 4, the next three swimmers (d, e, and f) are in lane 5, the next three swimmers (g, h, and i) are in lane 5, and so on. By placing swimmers in lanes across multiple heats, the best swimmers still get the fastest lanes. read more

the inner lanes are for the fastest swimmers in that heat or final, this is because if you swim in the outer lanes you get to wash from the inner swimmers pushing (water) you to the side and you may not get your best time, to summarise. read more

Barry Revzin, a data analyst based in Chicago who used to swim competitively at MIT, found compelling evidence of the lane effect by comparing swimmers' times as they rose through the heats and semi-finals. He took advantage of the fact that athletes were typically assigned different lanes as they progressed through the competition. read more

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