NANTERRE, France — We are taught, rather early in life, that correlation is not causation.
But something is keeping the world’s best swimmers from swimming their usual fastest at these Summer Games.
Five days into the competition at La Défense Arena, there has not been a single world record set in the pool here, a temporary facility built inside what usually is a rugby and concert venue. And, certainly, with swimmers as talented and dominant as Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, France’s Léon Marchand, or the GOAT, Katie Ledecky, somebody should have caught a heater by now and smoked an existing standard. This is what swimming (and track) is all about, right: going faster, and faster, and faster. Records are shattered, it seems, every year, and sometimes, multiple times a year.
But, so far, the best the best can do has been setting a handful of Olympic records — a substantial accomplishment, to be sure. But not world-beating. None of the three favorites at Saturday’s “Race of the Century,” the women’s 400-meter freestyle, came close to breaking their own individual records.
Similarly, on Tuesday, the four fastest women’s 100-meter backstrokers in history took part in the final. Australia’s Kaylee McKeown won, and set another Olympic record, at 57.33. But she was…
