Swimming Backstroke 200 m
By Isabel Goodwin
Backstroke Swimming in the Olympics
Backstroke swimming has been an event in the Summer Olympics since Summer 1968, when the Olympics were held in Mexico. The swimmer swims on his/her back, and the arms move in a circular motion, propelling the swimmer. Some of the gold medalists winners have been John Naber (USA, 1976), Diana Mocanu (ROU, 2000), and Missy Franklin (USA, 2012).
Comparing Swim Times
The goal of this project is to compare the swim times of the men and women gold medalists since the Munich Summer Olympics in 1972 in the backstroke 200 meters. That is forty years of data, ending at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Then, you can find the predicted intersect point, when the swim times will be the same, and predict future trends in the swim times.
The data was taken from olympic.org, where the times of the men and women gold medalists were recorded and entered into a graph and table.
Data
Data Table 1
This data table shows the swim times from 1972-2012. On the left column is the year. The middle column shows the men's gold medalist time in seconds, and the column on the right shows the women's gold medalist time in seconds.
Data Table continued
1988-2000
Data Table continued again
2004-2012
Graphing the Data
Scatterplot
This scatter plot represents the times of the swimmers and their years. The pink squares represent women's times and the blue squares represent male times.
Line of Best Fit
The lines represent the trend of the times so far. The red line represents women times and blue represents men's times. As you can see, the red line appears to be moving down faster than the blue line.
Intersection Point
In this graph, the red line shows female swim trend and the blue line shows male swim trend. As you can see, while the women's times are slower now, they are decreasing at a higher rate than the men's times. The intersection point shows when the swimming times will be the same. Based on current statistics, the predicted time when men and women will have the same swimming times is the year of the Summer Olympics in 2,166. At that time the women's times will be the same or than the men's, equal to or less than 79 seconds.
After the Intersection Point
After the intersection point, from 2,166 on, women will have faster swim times in the 200 m backstroke.
X Axis
In the graph, scatter plot, and line graph, the X axis represents years. The years go from 1972-2012.
Bibliography
Olympic.org