Competitive swimming relay teams with shorter exchange times have been shown to place ahead of teams with equal or shorter swim times. Training relay exchanges to a standardize?time which is shorter than the expected mean has been proposed in order to minimize the possibility of the team being out-placed by teams with average exchange times. This study investigated whether standardized relay exchange time training is consistent with competitive swimming relay performance results. Swimming relay competition results from the 2008 Beijing Olympics were analyzed using the mean (+/- standard deviation) of team relay exchange times. Teams with shorter exchange times (0.529 +/- 0.204 seconds) out?placed teams with longer exchange times (0.912 +/- 0.206 seconds). The mean team exchange time for teams other than the above was 0.703 (+/- 0.219) seconds. All three means were significantly (p </= .05) different from one another. Swimming relay performance data from the 2008 Olympics supports training to a standardized relay exchange time. Attainment of this goal may increase the probability that finish places would be based on swimming performance. The training of a team's relay exchange times should be considered in line with a team's tolerance for risk taking which may change over a competitive season.
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