Swimming faster has always been of interest to coaches. How we perceive time and swimming speed is vital to how we train, interpret the results of training, plan for completion and evaluate performance. Modern technology has broadened our perspective on how to interpret performance. The data was collected online (www.swim.ee) and statistical tests were used to analyze the results. In all 100 meter events at the European short course and long course championships, The swimmers were swimming slower as a group from 15 to 95 meters, regardless of stroke, course and sex. The differences that occur in swimming speed during 100 m races are larger than the difference that can have an impact on placing at the end of the race. We hypothesize; that the difference in swimming speed between fixed points occurs continuously because of the density of water creates a high resistance that the swimmer has to over-come, thus leading to a reduction in swimming speed between individual stroke-cycles. Interpreting the difference in time at the finish of the race, or differences in split-times during the race increases the the magnitude of improvements that has to be made in order to improve performance. By looking at swimming speed instead of time differences, a reduction of the magnitude in the improvement-gap becomes manageable. This has implications for both training an d competition, because it changes the perception of how performance can be improved from physiological, biomechanical and psychological perspectives.