How Elite Swimmers Pace the 200m Freestyle

The 200m freestyle is one of my favorite events in the pool because it sits on the edge of being a speed event and a distance race.

To swim it at a high level, swimmers need a solid amount of speed, pacing control, and the aerobic engine to bring it home on the final laps of the race.

And when it comes to pacing, swimmers have their preferred strategies for attacking the race.

Some get after it in the front half and hold on for dear life. Others go out measured and controlled and finish furiously. Others try and maintain a steady pace from start to finish.

Is there a strategy that works best? And how do the best male 200m freestylers pace this event?

See also: Want to see how elite freestylers pace the 100 freestyle? Check out my guide on how to pace the 100 freestyle.

Three Ways to Pace the 200m Freestyle

A study looked at the men’s finalists in the 200m freestyle from three recent long course World Championships—Budapest (2022), Fukuoka (2023), and Doha (2024).

A total of 24 swims were analyzed, including everything from reaction time, final time, and velocity for each 50m of the race.

There were three general pacing strategies that stuck out:

• Controlled positive pacing – Swimmers went out fast, followed by some deceleration, with the final 50 equal to or faster than the third 50.
• Progressive positive pacing – Each 50 got slower.
• Negative/fast-finish pacing – A more controlled opening half followed by a “Sammy Save-up” final 50.

In this (small) sample, there wasn’t one strategy that dominated every World Championship final.

Some of the top performances came from swimmers who finished quickly. Others white-knuckled it home after a blistering opening 100.

But when researchers started digging through splits and velocities, they saw that the middle of the race—particularly the third 50—stood out.

Protect Your Speed Through the Middle of the 200

Swimmers often obsess over their opening 50 (“don’t go out too hard!”) or the final 50 (“bring it home!”).

But it’s that middle part where elite performances tend to shine.

In the World Championship study, researchers used final time and third-50 velocity to group swimmers according to performance. The faster swimmers in the group held a faster velocity during this 50 compared to the slower group.

And then there was David Popovici, who literally put himself in one-of-one cluster on his own:

Past research looking at the performances across nine major international meets—including the Olympics and World Championships—also showed the importance of the middle 100 for swimming well (Robertson et al., 2009).

For the men’s 200m freestyle finalists, the relationship between each 50 split and final performance looked like this:

That middle 100 had the strongest link to overall performance.

So does that mean you should totally change your pacing strategy?

Maybe. Maybe not. Robertson et al. (2009) saw that the best and slower swimmers both used similar pacing patterns.

The elites weren’t deploying some super secret pacing strategy, but they were simply faster throughout the whole race and also better able to maintain speed through the middle.

What Popovici’s 1:43 Can Teach Swimmers

Popovici’s 2022 World Championship swim is a great example of how maintaining speed through the middle of the race looks like at the hyper-elite level.

His average velocities by 50 were:

The first 50 wasn’t blistering. And his final 50 was his slowest. It’s that he didn’t slow down in that third 50.

And along the way he smashed his personal best time, easily won the race, and became one of the rare swimmers to break 1:44 in the event.

“I tried to start as hard as I can, at the same time maintain an easy speed, a high but constant speed, then accelerate on the third 50, after which on the last one I try to blast it. That’s what we talked about right before the race. It’s our usual strategy.” — David Popovici

Wrapping Things Up

There isn’t one perfect way to pace a 200m freestyle.

Different swimmers can successfully lean on their individual strengths, whether that’s lightning opening speed, endurance, or chasing swimmers down with thunderous closing speed.

But the way elite 200m freestylers swim the race point at something important—don’t give away that middle 100.

Train yourself to carry race speed through the second and third 50s, especially as fatigue starts to creep up on you in that third 50.

The 200 free isn’t won on the start, and it isn’t always won at the finish—it’s what you can do between that sets up where you end up.