Abstract
This study described age-related changes in swim time as a function of top-ten finishing place for Masters swimmers. Previous research has documented increases in 50-m freestyle swim times for men beyond age 35 using aggregated top-ten times. The present study examined the relationship between age and swim time, taking into account the potential influence of finishing place in the top-ten. Data were retrieved from the United States Masters Swimming database for male top-ten finishers in the 50-m short course freestyle for the years from 1993 to 2002. Data from each year were analyzed using linear regression procedures with Age, Square of age, and Finishing place as predictor variables and Swim time as the dependent variable. Analysis indicated that, when Finishing place was considered, a more gradual increase in Swim time as a function of age was seen for finishing places closer to first place than for those closer to tenth place.