Olympic games are the pinnacle of elite swimmers' careers where they strive to peak and produce personal best (PB) times. The Olympics provides a unique benchmark to assess successfulness of preparation regimes. The aim of this research was to quantify the likelihood of producing a PB and the expected magnitude of improvement. We analysed relative swim performance gain (RSPG%) or decrement from PB time using data from 793 swimmers (1075 event entries) competing in the 13 male and female individual events of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hierarchical linear regression were performed to estimate the effect of gender, stroke--? type, swimming distance, age, and days since PB, on PB times. We found 339 (31.5%) swimmers produced a PB time during the games. Mean PB improvement was 1.6 ± 3.2% faster, with PB times coming 437 ± 473 days following their previous PB. Gold medallists had ~81% PB success rate. Those failing to set a PB swam 1.5 ± 1.4% slower than their actual PB. The 50m Freestyle was associated with the greatest RSPG% improvement (Males 0.3%, females 1.5% faster). Combining our data with knowledge of actual preparation strategies employed by specific swimmers or teams will allow assessment of the relative success of an approach.
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