The present study tested the assumption that several crucial factors, such as duration of the final stage preparation (FSP), gender, age, selection procedures, swimmers' ranks, swimming stroke and distance account for swimming time variance in the 2004 Athens Olympic competition. A total of 424 events per-formed by 301 Olympic swimmers were analyzed to obtain the relative performance gain (RPG%) that was computed as the differences between the entry swimming results and swimming time in the Olympic competition. The average RPG% gain equaled 0.58% (SD = 1.13%), indicating performance decline, embracing 68.2% of all the swimming events. Only two categories of competitors, the medal winners and swimmers ranked 4-8, surpassed their previous entry time; one-way ANOVA revealed significant (p = .04) superiority of the swimmers who were selected rigorously over swimmers selected liberally.
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