Free Riding in Swimming
At the 2012 Olympics in London, Nathan Adrian won the gold medal in the 100 meter freestyle. However, as the first leg of the 4×100 meter freestyle relay, he swam the slowest of the four relay team members, swimming a time that was 0.37 seconds slower than his time from the individual race (which for those unfamiliar with swimming, is a lot of time for a 100 meter event). The difference in times swum by Adrian is an example of “free-riding”. Free-riding is the ability to benefit from a team performance without suffering the cost. The authors of an article analyzing data from over 7000 major swimming competitions over a 37 year span found that the first leg of a relay tended to swim 0.3% slower than their best time, while the difference for the second and third legs were less. There was no measurable difference in times for the last leg of the relay.
Free-riding can be better understood using game theory. Every leg of the relay weighs the payoff of going fast, the benefit being the team winning and the cost being muscle fatigue. All members of the relay want to win gold, however for each leg of the relay, the payoff of their individual swim seems to be higher and higher as the relay progresses. On top of this, the relay team members also weigh the payoffs of going faster than the members of the other teams in the water at the same time of them, who also may be free-riding. These options and payoffs balance out to a Nash equilibrium in which not every swimmer may be swimming to his/her full potential. The authors concluded that although coaches tend to put the fastest swimmers in the first and fourth leg of a relay and the slower swimmers in the middle two legs, it may be better practice to seed swimmers in descending order of speed through the four legs of the race.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2014/11/free-riding-swimming