Nathan Adrian of the United States won Wednesday's 100-meter freestyle in 47.52 seconds. It's one of the fastest times in history but not as fast as that of Alain Bernard, who won the gold in Beijing. So how does Adrian measure against history?

In the pool below, he is swimming against every Olympic medalist ever in the 100-meter freestyle, going all the way back to 1896 (technically, medals weren't around back then -- if you won, they gave you a silver medal, an olive branch and a diploma, but never mind).

This pool shows where these great swimmers would be when Bernard finished his race. Adrian, just three-tenths of a second behind Bernard, would be edged out by an arm's length or so. And all the way at the other end of the pool -- Hungary's Alfred Hajos, who won in Athens in 1896. He's more than 42 meters back, his race about half over.

Is it fair to compare Hajos with today's athletes? Of course not. Hajos swam in frigid open water in the Bay of Zea, outside Piraeus, Greece, and he had to use hollowed-out pumpkins as his navigational lane markers. Adrian's race, by contrast, was measured so precisely that he was assessed to be one-hundredth of a second faster than the silver medalist.

But this pool is not a statistical comparison of which athletes are better than others. Instead, it is just one way of seeing how much faster swimmers have become.

It is also a reminder that today's athletes will not always be the best swimmers ever -- at some point, they will just be the best of their time.


PHOTOS: Nathan Adrian won after racing neck and neck with James Magnussen of Australia. (PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES); Alfred Hajos swam in 55-degree open water, in the Bay of Zea, Greece. He felt compelled to become a good swimmer after his father drowned in the Danube River. (PHOTOGRAPH BY HUNGARIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE); The first swimmer to break a minute in the Olympics, Johnny Weissmuller, went on to play Tarzan in ''Tarzan the Ape Man,'' which made him internationally famous. (PHOTOGRAPH BY INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE); Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in the 1972 Games in Munich. He nearly withdrew from the 100-meter event because he wasn't sure if he would win. (He did, setting a world record.) (PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY IMAGES); Ian Thorpe won a bronze medal in this event in 2004, but the Australian sprinter known as the Thorpedo won five Olympic gold medals in 2000 and 2004. (PHOTOGRAPH BY EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY); Jason Lezak won a bronze in the 100-meter event, but he is perhaps best known as the anchor of the 4x100 freestyle relay team in Beijing. Lezak's spectacular finish preserved Michael Phelps's gold medal streak in 2008. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ASSOCIATED PRESS)
GRAPHICS: IN THE POOL: Every 100-meter freestyle medalist since 1896 in an imaginary race; CHARTS: WEDNESDAY'S RESULTS; Medal-winning times in the 100-meter freestyle; Countries with the most medals in the 100 freestyle