Pacing profiles, variability and progression in 400, 800 and 1500-m freestyle swimming events at the 2021 European Championship López Belmonte, Óscar Gay Párraga, Ana Ruiz-Navarro, Jesús Juan Cuenca-Fernández, Francisco González-Ponce, Ángela Arellano Colomina, Raúl Competition analysis Elite swimmers Performance intra-variability has not been studied in long-distance swimming. The aims were to describe the pacing profile in 400-, 800- and 1500-m freestyle events and to analyse the variability (coefficient of variation[CV]) and performance progression (%Δ) within and between rounds. A total of 256 swims of 130 eliteswimmers (70 males and 60 females) were analysed at the 2021 European Championship (indoor long-course). Linear mixed-effect models were applied for each swimmer and race time performances to obtain the CV and %Δ between each lap and rounds (i.e. heats and final). T-test was conducted to compare the CV between medallist and non-medallist. First and last laps were the fastest (p < 0.001) in all events compared to the intermediate laps which showed an evenly-pace. Parabolic pacing profile was adopted in all events. Male swimmers obtained a CV-average of 0.52 ± 0.49% between rounds (−0.64 ± 0.8%Δ) and females, a CVaverage of 0.70 ± 0.45 (−0.71 ± 0.92%Δ). Medallist swimmers obtained higher CV between rounds (1.00–1.08%) compared to non-medallist finalist (0.22–0.47%). Parabolic pacing profiles were adopted in 400-, 800-, and 1500-m races. The best swimmers adopt conservative strategies in heats to improve their performance in final, obtaining higher CV and %Δ between rounds. 2022-01-26T12:28:39Z 2022-01-26T12:28:39Z 2021-12-21 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Óscar López-Belmonte, Ana Gay, Jesús J. Ruiz-Navarro, Francisco Cuenca-Fernández, Ángela González-Ponce & Raúl Arellano (2021): Pacing profiles, variability and progression in 400, 800 and 1500-m freestyle swimming events at the 2021 European Championship, International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport http://hdl.handle.net/10481/72500 10.1080/24748668.2021.2010318 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Taylor & Francis