Tokyo Olympics: Is it a disadvantage to swim in the outer lanes?

Swimming is most avidly followed during the Olympics. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 will see some of the sport's big-guns like Caeleb Dressel, Blake Pieroni and Gunnar Bentz compete for Olympic glory.

Also Checkout: Tokyo Olympic 2020 Swimming Schedule

In this article, we take a look at a popular belief associated with swimming - that the swimmers in the outer lanes are at a disadvantage.

In any sport, the players want favorable conditions to improve their performance. For instance, most football teams prefer to play in their home stadium with the support of their fans. This is true with swimming as well.

While the players' preferences are sometimes merely psychological with no real impact on the outcome, some conditions can really affect their performance.

Also Checkout: Tokyo Olympics Swimming Schedule

The reason for the disadvantage

A lot of players and coaches believe that swimming in the central lanes will provide an added advantage to the athlete. This is why the fastest qualifiers in the heats are allotted the central lanes, with lane No. 4 being the most coveted among them all. The outer lanes, on the other hand, are given to the slowest qualifiers who are not really in contention for the medals.

The belief that the central lanes are better is true for two reasons. Firstly, the central lanes give better visibility to the swimmer. They can see the pace of the competitors to their left and right, and adjust accordingly. The second advantage in the central lanes is steadier water. Swimmers in the outer lanes, i.e. lanes 1 and 8, will have to go through more turbulent water, compared to the ones in central lanes, because the waves created by the arm/body strokes bounce back to the walls of the pool. This hampers movement in water and makes swimming difficult.

What a start! On the opening day of Rio 2016, the Australian women's 4x100m freestyle relay team set a new world record, winning gold in a time of 3:30.65. 🏊‍♀️🇦🇺#StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/nX69xGDKJY

— Olympics (@Olympics) July 7, 2021

The Australian women's 4x100m relay team set the world record swimming in lane No.4 during the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Explaining why the outer lanes are a disadvantage, coach A C Jayarajan, who trained Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj in his formative years, said:

"Lanes don't matter much if you're swimming at an amateur level. But if you're racing at an elite level then the outer lanes are a disadvantage. The water is turbulent in the outer lanes and it is difficult for the swimmer to cut through the water. It also slows down his speed."

The outer lanes are clearly a disadvantage. However, time and time again, swimmers have claimed medals and podium finishes from outer lanes. For example, in 2016 Rio Olympics, Dmitriy Balandin of Kazakhstan won the men's 200m breaststroke from an outer lane.

So, the belief that outside lanes are a disadvantage is certainly true to an extent. But it is not a factor that eliminates a competitor from contention completely.