Nick Thierry at swimnews kindly provided me with the results of all Olympic games and World Championships back to 1988. They provide fascinating reading to anyone interested in the trends and progressions in our sport.I've transcribed them into graphical display and also converted the actual times in each event to FINA points. Nick won't like that because he invented the IPS points and they each use a different formula to produce the results, however the FINA system is open source so its easy for anyone to duplicate it on their computer.
FINA will update their points at the end of each Olympic quadrenniel but I've used the 2004 calculations right through from 1988 to 2007 for ease of comparison. See this article for a look at the changes over the years.
An interesting point of the analysis is the lack of pattern in many events between 1st, 3rd, 8th. and 16th places. Another is the significant rise in standard across most events at the 2000 Sydney Games. That was when Speedo introduced the new racing suits. This year with the next generation of suits from all manufacturers we are seeing an even greater jump in standards.
During the recent SCAT Conference I showed the series of graphs and you can see and download the Excel file here.
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